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UNIVERSITY    OF    ILLi^bh(SG 
BULLETIN  "wtvtRsiTY of luiNd 


Vol.  XXV 


May  29,  1928 


No.  39 


Dedication  of  the 
Law  Building 


PUBLISHED  WEEKLY  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


URBANA 


[Entered  as  second-class  matter  December  11,  1912,  at  the  post  office  at  Urbana,  Illinois, 
under  the  act  of  August  24,  1912.  Acceptance  for  mailing  at  the  special  rate  of  post- 
age provided  for  in  section  1103,  Act  of  October  3,  1917,  authorized  July  31,   1918.] 


Pmfrersttg  of  ,3liImots 


tEtjursfrag,  ©etcher  13 
1927 


program 


Afternoon — 4  o'clock 
Professor  Frederick  Green,  Presiding 

Address Dean  Albert  J.  Harno 

Address Judge  Fred  L.  Wham 


Evening — 8  o'clock 
President  David  Kinley,  Presiding 

Address Judge  Oliver  A.  Harker 

Address Dr.  James  Brown  Scott 


INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS 

Frederick  Green 
Professor  of  Law 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/dedicationfolawbOOuniv 


w 


e  have  come  here  this  afternoon  because  it 
has  seemed  fitting  to  mark  in  some  distinct 
way  the  advent  of  the  Law  School  to  its  new 
abode.  We  call  it  dedicating  the  Law  Building.  Yet  we 
might  well  say,  as  Lincoln  did  at  Gettysburg,  that  in  a 
larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate  this  building ;  those  men 
who  shall  come  here  to  study  and  to  learn  will  dedicate 
it  beyond  our  power  to  add  or  to  detract. 

Of  course,  to  paraphrase  a  poet,  stone  walls  do  not  a 
Law  School  make,  nor  reading  rooms  a  sage.  And  yet, 
there  is  something  in  having  quarters  that  are  dignified, 
commodious,  and  pleasing,  which  add  measureably  to 
the  feeling  of  satisfaction  and  content  with  which  one 
goes  about  his  daily  work,  and  which,  in  the  long  run, 
ought  to  have  an  effect  upon  the  disposition,  and,  if  a 
man's  character  isn't  already  ossified,  I  suppose  upon 
his  character,  too.  It  is  this  connection  between  the 
surroundings  and  the  mind  which  gives  substance  to  the 
saying  that  cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness.  Shakespeare 
has  said  with  a  slightly  different  intent  that  "as  this 
temple  waxes,  the  inward  service  of  the  mind  and  soul 
grows  wide  withal."  So  may  it  be  with  the  Law  School. 
In  fact,  the  agriculturists  tell  us  that  even  cows,  if  you 
play  them  sweet  music,  give  better  milk. 

I  don't  know  that  there  are  many  in  this  audience  who 
read  the  society  column  in  the  Sunday  Tribune  as  assidu- 
ously as  they  read  the  football  page.  I  do.  I  glance  at 
each  occasionally.  And  I  was  sorry,  a  few  weeks  ago,  to 
see  that  that  sprightly  and  generally  well-informed  writer, 
who  uses  the  nom-de-plume  of  Madame  X,  made  dis- 
paraging remarks  about  the  architecture  of  this  building. 
I  am  sure  she  could  have  given  it  only  a  cursory  glance. 
And  no  doubt  her  purpose  was  to  emphasize  the  ad- 
vantages that  the  University  Library  has  in  its  new  loca- 
tion. Well,  let  us  grant  that  some  of  the  building's  out- 
lines may  be  harsh  and  crude,  and  the  curve  of  its  arches 

-{7}- 


somewhat  reminiscent  of  a  by-gone  epoch.  Is  it,  there- 
fore, less  typical  of  the  law?  And  if  the  necessity  of  de- 
veloping to  meet  the  changing  and  expanding  needs  of 
changing  times  has  rendered  its  form  somewhat  sprawl- 
ing, is  not  that,  too,  typical  of  law?  To  me,  it  is  a  con- 
stantly recurrent  joy  to  see  the  tower  rising  above  the 
foliage  of  the  trees,  or,  as  you  see  it  from  the  Wright 
Street  side,  soaring  into  the  air  above  the  adjoining 
roofs  like  a  cathedral  spire.  I  think  it  is  a  thing  of 
beauty.  Perhaps  in  course  of  time  it  has  become,  like 
the  face  of  a  friend,  something  that  is  no  longer  a  mere 
matter  of  lines  or  angles ;  but  to  me  there  is  in  its  fine, 
aspiring  lines  and  stately,  well-balanced  proportions 
something  that  fitly  symbolizes  that  metaphorical  thing 
we  call  the  majesty  of  the  law. 

I  have  been  given  to  understand  that  the  Law  School 
was  started  in  1897.  So  it  is  now  thirty  years  old.  For 
a  few  years  its  classes  met  in  University  Hall,  wherever 
there  happened  to  be  room,  and  then  we  acquired,  if  I 
may  paraphrase  a  poet  again,  a  local  habitation  and  a 
dean.  President  Draper  acted  as  dean  for  a  while,  but 
Dean  Scott  was  the  first  dean  we  had  all  to  ourselves.  It 
was  under  his  auspices  that  we  entered  our  first  building, 
and  so  it  is  especially  fortunate  that  he  is  here  to  help 
us  celebrate  our  coming  into  this  building.  Dulce  et 
decorum  est. 

As  this  New  Law  Building  is  the  Old  Library  Build- 
ing, so  that  Law  Building  was  the  Old  Chemistry  Build- 
ing. And  there  the  Law  School  lived  for  some  years,  if 
not  precisely  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  very  decidedly  in 
the  odor  of  chemistry.  But  the  smells  that  came  from 
the  chemicals  that  soaked  the  floors  were  mitigated, 
alleviated,  and  at  times  completely  overwhelmed  by  the 
smells  that  came  from  the  taxidermist's  shop  in  the  base- 
ment. I  believe  that  most  of  the  animals  in  the  Natural 
History  Museum  were  skinned  and  eviscerated  in  that 
basement.    So  while  strange  beasts  and  rare  birds  were 


manufactured  in  the  basement,  the  upper  stories  of  the 
building  were  engaged  in  producing  and  sending  forth  a 
multitude  of  lawyers  who  went  to  practice  law  from 
Florida  to  Seattle,  and  even  in  the  Philippines.  One  of 
our  graduates  has  sat  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  China.  One  of  them,  at  least,  is  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  One  is  a  member  of  the 
House  of  David. 

And  the  Law  School  has  been  not  only  a  seminary  of 
lawyers,  but  a  proving  ground  and  developing  field  for 
law  teachers.  Our  faculty,  though  not  numerous  at  any 
one  time,  has  been  numerous  in  its  totality,  for  there 
have  been  many  changes  and  at  times  it  has  seemed  as 
if  the  average  stay  of  a  teacher  was  hardly  longer  than 
that  of  a  student.  Teachers  have,  gone  out  from  this 
School  to  teach  law  from  Sandy  Hook  to  San  Francisco, 
and  from  the  Falls  of  Minnehaha  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
One  of  them  has  taught  law  in  that  ancient  seat  of  learn- 
ing, Oxford  University,  and  now  lives  in  that  still  more 
ancient  seat  of  learning  the  city  of  Alexandria,  Egypt. 
So  that  the  present  School  is  the  result  of  the  thought 
and  planning  of  a  very  considerable  body  of  men. 

A  large  part  of  the  history  of  legal  education  in  the 
last  quarter  of  a  century,  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say, 
a  large  part  of  the  history  of  law  schools,  has  been  a  his- 
tory of  the  raising  of  the  standards  of  the  schools.  Stand- 
ards are  things  that  live  in  a  world  of  one-dimensional 
space.  They  move  vertically,  up  or  down.  You  can 
raise  them  and  you  can  lower  them.  I  have  never  heard 
of  their  being  broadened.  An  equilibrium  is  always 
maintained,  because  when  your  standards  go  up,  your 
attendance  goes  down.  Then  in  a  few  years  attendance 
increases  and  it  becomes  necessary  to  redress  the  bal- 
ance by  raising  the  standards  again.  So  we  have  already 
raised  our  standards  of  admission  twice,  and  soon  we 
are  going  to  raise  them  for  a  third  time. 

"4  9}- 


Once  in  my  student  days  I  went  to  hear  a  lecture  by 
a  very  distinguished  man.  I  have  completely  forgotten 
who  he  was,  but  I  remember  very  well  the  professor  who 
introduced  him.  A  period  of  an  hour  was  available  for 
the  lecture.  The  professor,  being  absent-minded  like 
his  kind,  when  he  found  himself  on  a  platform  talking, 
thought  he  was  giving  a  lecture  of  his  own,  and  spoke 
for  forty  minutes,  leaving  only  twenty  for  the  man  we 
had  come  to  hear.  You  should  not  build  a  portico  bigger 
than  the  house.  So  I  have  pleasure  in  introducing  to 
you  a  gentleman  whose  equanimity  I  will  not  disturb 
by  saying  anything  about  him.  It  isn't  necessary: — 
Dean  Harno. 


-iio}- 


Address 

SOME  OBSERVATIONS  ABOUT  LEGAL 
EDUCATION 

Albert  James  Harno 
Dean  of  the  College  of  Law 


J  EG 


egal  education  in  English  speaking  countries  has 
had  a  history  peculiarly  its  own.  Moore  in  his 
^j  Utopia  wrote  of  a  happy  state  rendered  especially 
so  because  from  it  all  lawyers  were  barred.  Might  we 
conjecture  from  this  that  blissful  was  life  in  old  England 
before  King  John,  for  during  his  reign  the  first  learned 
lay  lawyer  made  his  appearance?  From  the  time  of 
King  John  to  Edward  I  the  English  Courts  gradually 
became  localized  at  Westminster  Hall  and  lawyers  gath- 
ered in  London  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  and 
formed  there  the  "Inns-of-Court"  where,  in  kind,  in- 
struction was  given  in  law.  These  Inns  came  later  to  be 
known  as  the  four  legal  "Societies  of  Lincoln's  Inn, 
Gray's  Inn,  The  Inner  Temple,  and  the  Middle  Temple."1 
In  the  Seventeenth  Century  instruction  in  the  Inns 
consisted  principally  of  "reading,  bolting,  and  mooting 
of  cases."  By  "mooting  of  cases"  was  meant  attention 
to  arguments  by  barristers  who  had  been  called  to  the 
bar,  or  to  those  of  "students  who  had  become  expert 
"bolters'."  By  "bolting  of  cases"  was  meant  the  "con- 
versational discussions  upon  cases  put  to  students  by  a 
bencher  or  two  barristers  sitting  as  judges  in  private 
chambers."  The  readings  were  given  by  two  persons 
appointed  from  among  the  most  distinguished  barristers. 
The  method  of  instruction  followed  in  the  Inns  had  sev- 
eral incidents  which  one  might  venture  to  believe  will 
find  a  warm  reception  on  the  part  of  some  of  our  own 
students.  We  are  told  "there  were  no  prescribed  attend- 
ance, no  lectures  and  no  regular  course  of  study  ...  a 
student  being  simply  obliged  to  eat  three  dinners,  (six,  in 
case  of  a  non-University  man)  in  the  Hall  of  the  Inn, 
in  each  of  the  four  terms,  Hilary,  Easter,  Trinity  and 
Michaelmas ;  and  after  'keeping'  a  certain  number  of 


n  Warren,  History  of 'the  Harvard  Law  School,  (1908),  pp.  36,  37. 

-{ 13  y 


terms  (at  different  periods,  7,  10,  and  5  years)  he  was 
called  by  the  'benchers'  as  a  barrister."2 

Books  for  law  study  were  few.  Rolle,  in  his  Abridg- 
ment written  in  1668,  suggests  the  following  reading 
course  for  students : 

Spend  two  or  three  years  in  the  diligent  reading  of  Littleton, 
Perkins,  Doctor  and  Student,  Fitzherbert's  Natura  Brevium  and 
especially  my  Lord  Coke's  Commentaries  and  possibly  his  Reports — 
After  two  or  three  years  so  spent,  let  him  have  a  large  commonplace 
book,  afterwards  it  might  be  fit  to  read  the  Year  Book;  because 
many  of  the  elder  Year  Books  are  filled  with  law  not  so  much  in 
use;  he  may  single  out  for  his  constant  reading  such  as  are  most 
useful,  as  the  last  part  of  Edward  III,  the  Book  of  Assizes,  the  sec- 
ond part  of  Henry  VI,  Edward  IV,  Henry  VII,  and  so  come  down 
in  order  and  succession  of  time  to  the  latter  law,  viz.:  Plowden, 
Dyer,  Coke's  Reports,  the  Second  Term  and  those  other  Reports 
lately  printed.3 

The  Inns-of-Court  had  a  determinative  influence  up- 
on legal  education  in  England,  and  English  methods  in 
turn  molded  the  American  processes.  While  in  con- 
tinental European  countries  legal  education  has  ever 
been  under  the  influence  of  the  universities,  the  Inns-of- 
Court,  being  distinctly  professional  societies,  created  a 
cleft  between  "the  barristers  with  their  practical  law," 
on  the  one  side  and  the  universities  with  their  theoreti- 
cal work  on  the  other.  The  Inns,  independent  of  the 
universities,  assumed  the  responsibility  of  preparing 
members  for  the  bar.  Indeed,  the  idea  has  persisted  to 
this  day  in  this  country  and  in  England  that  the  training 
of  lawyers  is  an  undertaking  which  should  well  be  left 
to  the  profession.4  Only  in  recent  years  have  the  univer- 
sities been  conceded  any  respectable  part  in  the  scheme. 

The  Eighteenth  Century  was  marked  for  legal  educa- 
tion by  the  appearance  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries, 


2Ibid.,  p.  38.  See  also,  Training  for  the  Public  Profession  of  the  Law,  The 
Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching,  (1921),  pp.  15,  16. 

3Quoted  by  Warren,  ibid.,  p.  39. 

4Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching,  op.  cit.,  p.  108; 
McMurray,  The  Place  of  Research  in  the  American  Law  School,  (1925),  Hand- 
book of  the  Association  of  American  Law  Schools,  pp.  20,  26. 


-|  14  }. 


the  first  American  edition  of  which  was  published  in 
1771-1772.  These  at  once  had  "a  profound  influence 
upon  the  legal  development  of  this  country,"  for  they 
became  the  paternoster  for  the  young  aspirant  to  the 
bar.  Early  American  law  schools  were  lecture  schools  in 
which  Blackstone's  Commentaries  formed  the  "exclusive 
basis  of  the  work."  Lectures  soon  developed  into  text- 
books and  with  them  this  country  was  introduced  to  the 
second  method  of  instruction — the  textbook  method. 
Even  today  legal  education  is  imparted  through  these 
methods  in  many  law  schools  of  the  United  States, 
"sometimes  without  change  from  the  old  ways,  some- 
times again  with  all  sorts  of  improvement  in  detail."5 
But  in  most  of  the  university  law  schools  they  have  been 
replaced  by  a  newer  one  introduced  by  Langdell  into  the 
Harvard  Law  School  in  1871 — the  Case  Method — con- 
cerning the  merits  of  which  immediately  there  arose 
great  controversy  "about  it  and  about,"  but  which  was 
destined  shortly  to  give  a  new  impetus  to  legal  education 
and,  particularly,  to  that  brand  of  it  that  is  taught  in  the 
universities. 

That  the  case  method  of  study  was  a  great  pedagogic 
advance,  very  few  today  will  gainsay.  It  has  fitted  into 
the  scheme  of  our  law  because  our  law  is  for  the  most 
part  case  law.  The  common  law  is  "judge-made  law." 
While  those  countries  which  have  built  their  superstruc- 
ture of  law  on  a  Roman  foundation  have  been  able  to 
evolve  a  system  of  abstract  law,  the  common  law  "has 
never  passed  beyond  this  relatively  fluid  condition  of 
'judge-made  law'."  Langdell's  great  contribution  lay  in 
the  fact  that  in  the  case  method  of  instruction,  he  car- 
ried out  a  very  logical  idea,  by  means  of  which  the  stu- 
dent studied  source  material — the  cases  which  are  the 
very  warp  and  woof  of  our  law.  The  method  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  student  that  material  which  was  best 
suited  for  a  study  of  the  common  law. 

6Prof.  Redlich's  Report  to  the  Carnegie  Foundation,  The  Common  Law  and 
the  Case  Method,  (1914),  p.  7. 


Further,  the  case  method  of  study  gave  a  distinctly 
professional  cast  to  law  study  and  since  it  deals  with 
source  material  it  stands  in  relief  against  the  background 
of  the  unscientific  lecture  and  textbook  methods.  It 
lifted  the  study  of  law  to  an  equal  footing  with  the  study 
of  medicine,  where  experimental  methods  and  source 
material  had  for  some  time  been  used.  To  continue  in 
the  words  of  Professor  Redlich  of  the  University  of 
Vienna,  that  keen  observer  who  in  1915  made  a  careful 
study  of  the  case  method  for  the  Carnegie  Corporation  :6 

It  emphasizes  the  scientific  character  of  legal  thought;  it  goes 
now  a  step  further,  however,  and  demands  that  law,  just  because 
it  is  a  science,  must  also  be  taught  scientifically.  .  .  Consequently 
as  the  method  was  developed,  it  laid  the  main  emphasis  upon  pre- 
cisely that  aspect  of  the  training  which  the  older  textbook  school 
entirely  neglected:  the  training  of  the  student  in  intellectual  inde- 
pendence, in  individual  thinking,  in  digging  out  the  principles 
through  penetrating  analysis  of  the  material  found  within  separate 
cases:  material  which  contains,  all  mixed  in  with  one  another  both 
the  facts,  as  life  creates  them,  which  generate  the  law,  and  at  the 
same  time  rules  of  the  law  itself,  component  parts  of  the  general 
system. 

The  pedagogical  qualities  of  this  method,  it  is  believed, 
are  unexcelled.  Every  instructor  has  his  own  methods 
through  which  he  seeks  to  interest,  to  communicate,  and 
to  incite  thinking.  The  following  may  be  taken  as  typical 
of  the  case  method.  Student  M  is  called  upon  for  a  reci- 
tation. He  gives  his  understanding  of  the  facts,  issues 
and  legal  principles  involved.  Then  follow  a  series  of 
questions  by  the  instructor,  at  first,  as  a  rule,  dealing  only 
with  the  instant  case,  through  which  he  seeks,  skillfully 
or  not,  depending  on  whether  he  is  a  ten-  or  a  one-talent 
man,  to  draw  a  statement  of  the  principles  of  the  case 
from  the  student.  All  the  while  the  instructor  is  careful 
to  avoid  any  dogmatic  statement  by  himself.  One  test 
of  an  instructor's  skill  lies  in  his  ability,  through  a  cross- 
fire of  questions,  to  extract  information  from  the  stu- 
dent.   Ingenious,  indeed,  is  he  who  can  stimulate  the 

*Ibid.,  p.  39. 

-{16}- 


student  through  a  series  of  questions  to  announce  with 
a  fair  degree  of  accuracy  a  legal  principle  and  withal  to 
leave  the  impression  that  the  answer  was  entirely  the 
result  of  the  student's  own  thinking.  But  the  process  is 
not  permitted  to  rest  here;  discriminations,  so  vital  to 
good  legal  thinking,  are  yet  to  be  made;  the  instructor 
follows  up  the  discussion  on  the  instant  case  with  several 
well  chosen  hypothetical  questions  by  means  of  which 
the  student  is  tantalized  into  drawing  distinctions  and 
analogies.  Presently  other  students  are  drawn  into  the 
discussion;  soon  a  fair  portion  of  the  class  is  involved 
with  the  arguments  ever  gathering  in  momentum,  and 
now  the  instructor  must  call  upon  yet  other  talents  ;  skill 
is  required  to  incite  the  curiosity  and  the  thinking  pro- 
cesses of  a  class,  and  skill  equally  is  demanded  to  keep 
the  discussion  directed  along  proper  channels  and  finally 
to  stop  it  and  to  pass  to  new  problems.  Woe  unto  the 
instructor  who  does  not  possess  it !  The  whole  process, 
if  well  done,  is  exhilerating,  nay,  it  is  superb  pedagogy ! 
That  this  method  of  instruction  has  been  a  distinct 
advancement  in  the  process  of  legal  education,  there  can 
no  longer  be  any  doubt.  But  to  accept  it  as  fetish  and  to 
regard  it  as  sufficient  as  the  summa  summarum  of  a  legal 
training,  perhaps,  is  to  make  as  great  a  mistake  as  not  to 
accept  it  at  all.  Its  strength  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  sharp- 
ens the  intellect  for  close  thinking  and  that  it  cultivates 
an  ability  to  reason  by  analogy.  But  this  in  turn  ex- 
poses a  weakness  in  that  it  does  not  tend  to  inculcate  a 
philosophical  way  of  thinking  and  to  impress  upon  the 
mind  of  the  pupil  an  appraisal  of  the  place  and  function 
of  the  law  in  the  social  structure.  With  the  case  method 
of  study  the  student  is  likely  to  work  entirely  within  the 
law,  making  a  distinction  here,  refining  another  there, 
but  never  to  dig  his  way  out  so  that  he  may  view  the 
contours  of  the  law  in  relief.  This  feature  should  not 
be  minimized  for  it  signifies  the  difference  between  the 


-f  17  y 


workman  and  the  architect.  The  case  method  tends  to 
train  an  artisan  of  the  law  but  not  a  master-builder. 

It  cultivates  logical  thinking  and  with  it  legal  acumen. 
It  is  not  so  likely  to  lead  the  student  to  evaluate  legal 
principles.  The  fundamental  purpose  of  law  is  to  regu- 
late human  conduct.  "It  is  true,  I  think,  today  in  every 
department  of  the  Law,"  states  Mr.  Justice  Cardozo, 
"that  the  social  value  of  a  rule  has  become  a  test  of 
growing  power  and  importance."7  Law  as  taught  in  our 
law  schools  today  is  apt  to  leave  this  feature  neglected. 
We  polish  up  an  old  case,  we  deduct  and,  through  pro- 
cesses of  legal  logic,  we  attempt  to  make  the  old  prin- 
ciple fit  a  new  situation.8  We  pride  ourselves  upon  our 
processes  of  reasoning  but  all  the  time  we  are  apt  merely 
to  be  pouring  new  wine — I  trust  the  figure  is  legitimate 
— into  old  bottles.  All  this  is  useful  and  requires  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  skill,  and  old  bottles  for  the  purpose  are 
better  than  no  bottles,  but  as  the  years  have  rolled  on  not 
unlikely  some  of  the  bottles  have  become  antiquated  and 
clumsy  and  possibly,  in  the  beginning,  some  were 
wrought  slightly  awry. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  resort  to  case  law  exclusively  in  the 
training  of  the  lawyer  for  the  further  reason  that  the 
cases,  being  based  for  the  most  part  on  precedent,  fail  to 
give  him  a  progressive  viewpoint.  The  criticism  is  made 
of  the  lawyer,  and  not  without  merit,  that  he  is  un- 
imaginative and  ultra-conservative.  The  reason  for  this 
is  not  difficult  to  find  since  he  works  with  his  face  to  the 
past.  Whatever  he  may  do  at  other  times,  in  his  profes- 
sional life  the  lawyer  moves  among  the  ghostly  and 
spectral  figures  of  antiquity.  Is  it  to  be  imagined  that  a 
lawyer  ever  had  the  temerity  to  arise  and  to  address  the 
Court  with  the  words,  "Your  Honor,  I  have  an  unpre- 
cedented and  new  idea  to  expound  to  you  this  morning." 


7Cardozo,  The  Nature  of  the  Judicial  Process,  (1921),  p.  73. 
8See  an  excellent  article  by  Prof.  Cook,  Scientific  Method  and  the  Law, 
(1927),  13  Am.  Bar  Assoc.  J.,  p.  303. 


i  is }- 


Not  very  likely!  Rather  the  good  lawyer  makes  diligent 
effort  to  present  himself  before  the  Court  well  weighted 
down  with  hoary  authorities  excavated  from  the  dim 
past,  and  happy,  indeed,  is  he,  and  esteemed  by  his 
fellow  members  of  the  bar,  who  can  arise  and  say, 
"Your  Honor,  I  have  a  case  decided  in  the  time  of  Ed- 
ward I  which  governs  the  question  before  us."9  No  one 
who  has  carefully  thought  on  the  subject  will,  I  believe, 
gainsay  the  great  respect  we  owe  in  the  law  to  precedent, 
and  yet  to  have  no  other  gods  before  it  is  barely  short  of 
calamitous.  It  is  this  sort  of  thinking  that  the  case 
method  tends  to  perpetuate  in  the  minds  of  each  on- 
coming generation.  Against  it  we  should  make  valiant 
effort  to  guard  ourselves.  Were  we  to  have  a  banquet  of 
the  worthies  in  the  law,  and  were  I  to  invite  the  guests, 
I  should  assign  a  seat  at  the  table  to  Respectable  Pre- 
cedent, but  the  place  of  honor  I  should  award  to  Mr. 
Progress. 

It  is  imperative  that  we  cultivate  this  gentleman  in 
our  law  schools  for,  I  fear,  the  lawyer  looks  upon  him 
with  suspicion.  While  the  legal  profession  has  great 
qualities  of  leadership  in  other  respects,  it  has  been 
demonstrated  repeatedly  that  we  are  not  likely  to  find 
in  it  a  sufficient  number  of  men  of  progressive  qualities 
who  will  conduct  law  reforms  and  who  will  be  sympa- 
thetic with  new  methods  and  views  pertaining  to  the 
law.10  If  we  are  to  find  these  qualities  in  strength,  we 
must  look  for  them  in  our  leading  law  schools.  It  is  the 
responsibility  and  the  privilege  of  our  schools  to  furnish 
this  leadership. 

In  the  medical  profession,  in  business  and  industry, 
and  in  technical  and  scientific  work  discoveries  and  new 
ideas  are  acclaimed  with  applause.  Much  effort  and  time 
is  spent  in  testing  and  in  scientific  experimentation.   Is 

sSee  Train,  On  the  Trail  of  the  Bad  Men,  (1925),  "Preface." 
10See  Sunderland,  The  Evolution  of  Remedial  Rights,  (1925),  Handbook  of 
the  Association  of  American  Law  Schools,  p.  62. 

-{19}- 


it  not  likely  that  we  who  follow  the  law  have  much  to 
learn  from  them?  I  accept  it  as  a  thesis  that  we  have.  For 
scientific  achievement  in  the  law  we  must  seek  to  com- 
bine, I  take  it,  two  cardinal  features,  namely,  sound 
theory  and  social  value.  And  first  I  shall  consider  legal 
theory,  for  it,  as  we  shall  see,  has  a  seat  among  the  in- 
vited guests  at  our  legal  table. 

Progressive  attainments  are  possible,  whatever  may 
be  the  field,  only  when  preceded  by  sound  theory.  In 
theory,  we  have  the  foundation  for  achievement.  The 
foundation  is  laid  in  thought,  the  sustaining  strength  of 
which  remains  to  be  tested  by  experimentation  and  ob- 
servation. Before  legal  theory  can  well  begin  to  stir  in 
the  human  brain,  the  principles  of  the  law,  in  all  its 
complex  details,  must  have  found  firm  lodgment  there. 
Case  study  is  recommended  without  hesitation  as  the 
method  best  suited  for  the  implantation  process.  But 
this  is  not  in  itself  sufficient,  for  case  study,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  apt  to  engage  the  mind  with  the  inner  details  of 
the  law  without  furnishing  a  grasp  of  its  social  purposes 
and  functions.  To  acquire  this  requires  the  study  of 
jurisprudence  and  the  philosophy  of  the  law  to  discover 
how  it  fits  into  the  social  scheme  and  where  it  touches 
and  overlaps  with  other  fields,  such  as  economics,  psy- 
chology, psychiatry,  and  sociology. 

Legal  theory,  too,  is  not  apt  to  thrive  with  a  mind  that 
has  not  been  trained  in  legal  history.  The  study  of  legal 
history  is  important  if  properly  directed,  but  is  useless 
if  it  involves  but  the  stirring  of  old  ashes.  What  purpose 
does  it  serve  merely  to  know  that  in  1540  the  Statute  of 
Wills  was  passed?  A  lesson  is  gained  from  this  impor- 
tant bit  of  legislation  when  the  mind  has  grasped  the 
social  forces  at  work  which  caused  this  act  to  be  passed, 
and  how  and  to  what  extent  the  operation  of  the  statute 
promoted  the  public  welfare.  Similarly,  why  was  the 
embezzlement  act  passed ;  what  evils  were  sought  to  be 
stopped  by  it,  and  to  what  extent  did  it  remedy  the  situ- 

i  20  }- 


ation?  From  history  we  gain  an  understanding  of  the 
worth  of  rules.  History,  "in  illuminating  the  past,  illumi- 
nates the  present,  and,  in  illuminating  the  present,  illu- 
minates the  future."11 

We  are  tilling  the  soil  for  theory  in  our  law  schools 
today,  though  we  must  confess  with  a  lack  of  thorough- 
ness in  the  fields  of  legal  history  and  the  philosophy  of 
the  law.  But  is  tilling  soil  to  remain  the  extent  of  our 
usefulness?  The  labors  of  a  good  husbandman,  surely, 
cannot  cease  there.  He  is  watchful  to  guard  against 
weeds,  with  care  he  eliminates  the  weak  and  useless 
plants,  and,  guided  by  patient  observation  and  experi- 
mentation, he  takes  pains  to  cultivate  only  those  plants 
that  are  fit. 

The  progressive  methods  of  our  time  employed  in  dis- 
covering merit  and  usefulness  in  other  fields,  whether  it 
be  in  husbandry,  industry,  or  science,  are  those  of  ob- 
servation and  experimentation.  For  example,  may  we 
note  the  procedure  in  the  Bureau  of  Standards  in  Wash- 
ington : 

When  a  given  product  is  under  consideration,  the  Bureau  of 
Standards  engineers  first  secure  samples  of  all  significant  va- 
rieties in  the  field  and  subject  them  to  rigid  tests,  in  order  to  de- 
termine comparative  quality.  Thus,  they  inform  themselves  as  to 
the  current  status  of  the  technical  art  covering  that  product.  Next 
they  go  into  the  field  of  pure  theory  and  ask:  What  is  the  highest 
quality  obtainable;  what  is  the  perfect  product;  and  what  are  the 
reasonable  limitations  that  prevent  attaining  perfection  in  commer- 
cial manufacture  ?  Then  the  engineers,  in  committees  of  the  Fed- 
eral Specifications  Board,  representing  the  Government's  interest 
as  a  consumer  as  well  as  its  technical  experts,  write  a  specification. 
It  is  based  both  on  theory  and  on  the  actual  performance  of  the 
available  types.  The  specification  represents  the  best  type  for  the 
purpose  in  hand  as  governed  by  the  practicable  limits  of  manu- 
facturing and  reasonable  cost.  The  specification  is  then  presented 
to  manufacturers  for  their  bids,  after  an  opportunity  for  criticism 
and  suggestion.  When  the  manufacturer  says — as  he  sometimes 
does — that  the  requirements  cannot  be  met,  the  Bureau's  engineers 
will  either  go  out  and  show  him  how  to  do  it — which  has  often  hap- 

nCardozo,  op.  cit.,  p.  53. 

i  21  }- 


pened — or,  if  he  is  right,  they  will  lower  the  specification  a  notch  or 
two.12 

We  have  much  to  learn  from  these  methods.  It  is  not 
inconceivable  that  similar  methods  can  be  employed  in 
the  law,  and  that  much  improvement  thereby  can  be 
wrought.  We  cannot  take  a  sample  and  work  upon  it  as 
the  engineer,  but  with  so  many  jurisdictions  to  draw 
upon  as  we  have  in  this  country  for  experimental  pur- 
poses, we  have  a  fertile  field  for  observation  and  for  data. 
Law  has  advanced  but  little  beyond  syllogistic  reason- 
ing, for  that  is  the  essence  of  case  study.  The  newer 
method  would  be  based  upon  sound  theory  tested  by 
experience  and  observation. 

May  we  take  as  an  illustration  the  problem  relating 
to  the  most  effective  method  of  dealing  with  the  con- 
victed criminal.  Here  is  a  complex  question  over  which 
law,  criminology,  penology,  and  psychiatry  overlap.  A 
worker  in  this  field  would  need  to  become  acquainted 
with  all  the  theories  extant  concerning  it.  Following 
this,  if  he  is  to  work  intelligently,  he  would  not  weigh 
these  theories  by  a  process  of  reasoning  operating  be- 
hind closed  doors,  but  would  judge  them  by  their  results. 
This  would  require  the  careful  tabulation  of  data  on 
each,  to  be  followed  by  a  comparison  of  the  results  ob- 
tained, and  from  these  he  would  draw  his  conclusions. 
This,  the  empiric  method,  would  demand  of  him  that  he 
pursue  his  studies  into  actual  life  where  he  would  work 
with  living  and  concrete  data.  His  labors  complete,  he 
would  be  in  a  position  to  reveal  scientific  conclusions 
and  to  lead  the  way  with  suggestions  for  improvement. 

This,  I  believe,  to  be  the  new  vineyard  for  the  law 
teacher.  This,  I  believe,  to  be  the  new  method  with 
which  the  law  teacher  is  obligated  to  first  acquaint  and 
familiarize  himself  and  then  to  impart  to  his  students. 
If  the  lawyer  is  to  wrestle  with  the  ever  increasing  com- 
plexities of  modern  life ;  if  he  is  to  withstand  the  storm 

12Chase  and  Schlink,  Your  Money's  Worthy  (1927),  p.  62. 

-{  22  }- 


of  criticism  which  the  public  is  levelling  at  the  profes- 
sion; if  he  is  to  cope  with  the  growing  feeling  that  the 
law  is  obsolete  and  not  adaptable  to  the  present  needs  of 
our  people,  and  if  he  is  to  reclaim  a  semblance  of  order 
from  the  chaos  caused  by  overweighted  and  haphazard 
legislation,  newer  and  more  scientific  methods  must  be 
employed  in  his  education.  The  old  machinery  of  the 
law  will  not  draw  the  load.  Other  agencies  of  civilization 
have  adapted  themselves  to  new  conditions ;  it  remains 
for  the  legal  profession  to  wheel  in  line.  It  is  the  privi- 
lege and  the  responsibility  of  the  law  teachers  to  lead  the 
way. 


-{  23  }■ 


Address 
OBLIGATIONS  OF  A  STATE  COLLEGE  OF  LAW 

Fred  L.  Wham 

Judge  of  the  United  States  District  Court 
Eastern  District  of  Illinois 


In  every  man's  life,  there  is  from  time  to  time  an 
event  which  stands  out  because  to  him  it  marks  an 
ambition  realized  or  a  hope  fulfilled.  To  me,  the 
dedication  of  this  beautiful  and  distinctive  building  al- 
ready rich  in  history  and  associations,  as  the  Law  Build- 
ing is  such  an  event.  On  this  occasion,  when  the  ex- 
pression of  a  certain  amount  of  sentiment  is  to  be  ex- 
pected, I  hope  that  I  may  not  be  regarded  as  foolishly 
sentimental,  when  I  say  that  as  a  student  here,  I  grew 
to  love  this  school  with  a  deep  and  abiding  love.  To  me 
it  is  a  real  Alma  Mater.  I  came  to  her  empty  handed, 
and  she  sent  me  forth  armed  with  tools  for  building  a 
life.  Dean  Harker  was  like  a  father  to  me,  and  my 
teachers  were  as  kind  and  helpful  as  brothers. 

And  going  out  from  the  men  and  from  the  school  that 
had  done  so  much  for  me,  could  I  forget  and  become  in- 
different to  her  and  her  welfare  ?  Obviously  I  could  not, 
nor  could  the  hundreds  of  other  alumni  whose  experi- 
ences here  were  similar  to  mine.  To  us,  "The  Old 
Grads,"  who  have  followed  with  keen  interest  the  strug- 
gle of  our  old  School  upward  into  her  own,  and  have, 
from  time  to  time,  been  privileged  to  help  a  little  here 
and  boost  a  little  there,  this  occasion  is  indeed  significant 
and  full  of  meaning.  It  is  the  final  proof  that  our  Alma 
Mater  has  at  least  escaped  the  deadening  clutches  of 
mediocrity,  and  has  climbed  to  the  heights  among  the 
superior.  No  longer  need  we  hesitate  to  admit  that  we 
are  from  the  College  of  Law  of  the  University  of  Illinois, 
but  now  we  will  hasten  to  tell  it  wherever  we  may. 

To  one  who  looks  at  this  flourishing  institution  as  it 
is  today,  second  in  numbers  among  all  the  great  state 
law  schools  of  the  land  and  second  to  none  in  quality  of 
work  and  instruction,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  only 
a  few  short  years  ago,  it  was  actually  struggling  for  ex- 
istence, and  fighting  to  justify  its  rights  to  exist.  While 
I  would  not  enter  into  a  discussion  of  its  early  trials  and 

■i  27  }- 


difficulties,  for  the  purpose  of  this  address,  I  will  recall 
that  even  in  my  day,  as  a  student  here,  the  argument 
was  advanced  by  many  thinking  people  that  a  law  school 
had  no  proper  place  in  a  tax  supported  institution.  Pre- 
sumably, this  argument  was  based  upon  the  theory  that 
education  in  the  law  fits  the  recipient  solely  to  follow 
the  profession  of  the  law  for  his  own  benefit,  and  cannot 
possibly  be  of  value  to  the  State  so  as  to  justify  the  use 
of  tax  money  for  such  a  purpose.  I  shall  refer  again  to 
this  argument. 

As  is  true  of  every  institution  which  is  founded  and 
fashioned  under  circumstances  of  stress,  the  College  of 
Law  of  the  University  of  Illinois  has  built  into  it  more 
or  less  of  the  lives  of  many  devoted  men.  On  this  oc- 
casion, I  am  sure  that  it  will  not  be  inappropriate  for  me 
as  an  appreciative  alumnus  of  the  institution  briefly  to 
mention  some  of  these  men  whom  I  had  the  privilege  of 
knowing  and  knowing  about. 

Naturally,  I  think,  the  outstanding  figure  in  the  minds 
of  us  who  love  Illinois  with  special  allegiance  to  the  Col- 
lege of  Law  is  that  loyal,  unsurpassed  friend  of  all,  Judge 
Harker.  Not  only  was  Judge  Harker  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  origin  and  organization  of  the  College  of 
Law,  but  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  he  has 
devoted  his  entire  life  to  it.  Upon  his  shoulders,  it  was, 
that  rested  most  of  the  burden  of  overcoming  the  early 
prejudices  against  the  Law  School  and  securing  for  it  its 
right  to  exist.  And  never  did  a  cause  have  an  advocate 
more  able  or  more  courageous.  A  man  less  courageous 
and  less  persistent  might  well  have  become  disheartened, 
but  with  a  clear  vision  of  the  high  destiny  of  the  insti- 
tution, and  with  sublime  faith  in  final  victory,  Judge 
Harker  never  ceased  to  strive  for  its  upbuilding  until  his 
efforts  were  rewarded  with  complete  success.  I  am  sure 
that  this  occasion  is  one  of  the  happiest  of  his  life,  and  I 
know  that  every  alumnus  of  Illinois  joins  with  me  when 

•|  28  }- 


I  say  "God  Bless  Judge  Harker,  and  grant  him  many 
more  years  of  happy  life  among  us  who  love  him." 

The  next  man  to  whom  my  mind  turns,  especially  in 
point  of  time,  is  that  outstanding  figure  in  the  affairs  of 
our  nation,  who  has  so  graciously  come  home  to  help 
celebrate  this  event.  I  refer  to  Dr.  James  Brown  Scott, 
the  first  dean  of  this  Law  School.  Surely  if  ever  a  great 
future  was  presaged  for  a  new  organization  by  the  dis- 
tinctive character  of  its  first  leader,  the  naming  of  the 
scholarly  James  Brown  Scott  as  the  first  dean  of  the 
Law  School  was  prophetic  of  the  present  occasion.  To 
the  thinking  person  who  has  paused  to  analyze  the  his- 
tory of  this  law  school,  it  is  clear  that  Dean  Scott's 
early  ideals  of  scholarship  and  constructive  thought 
which  have  been  so  eminently  wrought  out  in  his  own 
subsequent  career,  left  an  indelible  impression  upon  the 
new  institution. 

I  must  not  fail  to  mention  another  faithful  friend  and 
servant  of  the  College  of  Law  under  whom  it  was  my 
privilege  to  study,  and  who  is  yet,  a  distinguished  figure 
in  the  faculty.  I  refer  to  that  profound  student  and 
teacher  of  constitutional  law,  Professor  Frederick  Green. 
The  long  period  of  his  faithful  and  able  service  in  the 
School  has  made  him  part  and  parcel  of  it,  and  to  him 
is  due,  in  no  small  measure,  its  high  ideals  and  worthy 
traditions.  Professor  Green  will  always  be  remembered 
with  affection  by  all  who  have  studied  under  him,  and 
counted  as  one  of  the  really  effective  builders  of  the 
College  of  Law  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

In  recent  years,  the  College  of  Law  has  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  leadership  of  a  truly  exceptional  executive 
in  the  person  of  Dean  Albert  J.  Harno.  To  him  all  pay 
tribute  of  praise  today,  for  we  know  that  this  occasion 
marks  the  success  of  his  well-laid  plans  and  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  fondest  hopes  for  the  institution  which  has 
been  given  into  his  keeping.  As  I  have  met  and  talked 
with  Dean  Harno  from  time  to  time,  and  have  watched 

i  29  }- 


with  growing  interest  and  pride  and  joy  his  achieve- 
ments for  my  old  School,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  he 
possesses  in  a  superlative  degree,  the  qualities  of  a  great 
educational  leader  and  executive. 

I  cannot  leave  the  discussion  of  the  men  who  made 
this  College  of  Law  without  referring  briefly  to  the 
President  of  the  University.  By  his  many  years  of  able 
and  devoted  service,  President  Kinley  has  built  himself 
into  the  University,  even  as  Judge  Harker  has  built  him- 
self into  the  College  of  Law.  In  President  Kinley,  the 
College  of  Law  has  ever  had  a  stanch  friend.  Nowhere 
is  this  better  demonstrated  than  in  the  wise  provision 
for  its  present  and  future  needs  which  we  are  celebrating 
today,  and  in  the  recent  action  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
in  advancing  its  educational  standard  to  equal  that  of 
the  best  of  the  other  and  older  colleges  of  law.  In  my 
humble  judgment,  which  I  believe  to  be  backed  up  by 
actual  events,  the  College  of  Law  has  in  President  Kin- 
ley and  Dean  Harno  a  combination  of  leadership  which 
cannot  be  surpassed. 

The  College  of  Law  having  successfully  passed  the  day 
when  doubts  need  be  entertained  concerning  its  com- 
parative standing  among  the  law  colleges  of  the  land,  let 
us  examine  again  the  question  raised  by  its  early  oppo- 
nents as  to  whether  the  training  of  its  lawyers  is  a  proper 
function  of  a  state  and,  if  so,  what  duties  and  obligations 
such  training  imposes  upon  those  who  receive  it. 

It  was  always  puzzling  to  me  when  I  tried  to  under- 
stand why  a  state  should  not  be  interested  and  inter- 
ested deeply  in  the  education  of  its  lawyers.  One  need 
but  read  the  history  of  the  past  and  look  about  him  at 
the  present  to  know  the  tremendous  part  which  the  law- 
yer has  played  and  continues  to  play  in  every  political 
and  civil  movement  in  the  land.  These  matters  are  too 
well-known  and  too  often  discussed  to  require  more  than 
to  be  mentioned,  except  to  point  out  that  the  lawyer's 
influence  is  not  confined  to  the  practice  of  law  and  to 

i  30  }- 


making  constitutions  and  laws,  but  extends  with  almost 
controlling  force  into  every  nook  of  the  daily  life  and 
daily  thought  of  our  people.  Whenever  and  wherever  a 
problem  is  presented,  be  it  in  the  club,  in  the  lodge,  in 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  in  the  community  meeting, 
or  in  the  church,  the  people  instinctively  turn  to  the  law- 
yer for  advice  and  counsel.  If  a  speech  is  required,  the 
lawyer  is  the  first  man  called  upon  whether  it  be  a  re- 
ligious, fraternal,  business,  or  political  meeting.  Law- 
yers are  not  usually  looked  upon  as  a  particularly  re- 
ligious type,  but  in  my  Judicial  Circuit,  all  three  of  the 
Circuit  Judges  are  active  and  interested  teachers  of 
men's  Bible  classes,  and  in  my  city,  five  out  of  ten  active 
lawyers  are  teachers  of  Bible  classes  and  another  has 
been  the  superintendent  of  a  large  Sunday  School  for 
eight  years.  This  is  but  an  illustration  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  people  in  every  line  of  worthy  endeavor, 
though  it  be  entirely  apart  from  the  natural  trend  of  a 
lawyer's  thought  and  activity,  turn  to  the  profession  for 
their  leadership. 

This  dependence  of  the  public  upon  the  lawyer  can 
only  be  explained  as  being  a  recognition  of  the  superior 
fitness  of  the  lawyer  for  places  of  leadership  because  of 
his  special  training.  It  is  a  recognition  of  his  power  and 
courage  to  think  independently,  to  think  a  problem 
through,  and  to  guide  others  in  their  thoughts  to  a  logi- 
cal and  safe  conclusion.  I  know  a  young  lawyer  with  a 
very  lucrative  practice  who  derives  a  large  part  of  his 
income  from  fees  for  advice  and  counsel  to  the  leading 
business  men  of  his  community;  and  strange  to  say  it 
is  not  principally  with  their  legal  business  that  these 
men  come  to  him,  but  rather  with  their  knotty  business 
and  financial  problems.  It  is  almost  an  every  day  experi- 
ence for  him  to  have  some  business  man,  with  a  hundred 
times  more  practical  business  experience  than  he,  and 
who  is  looked  upon  by  the  public  as  being  the  last  word 
in  business  acumen  and  wisdom,  come  to  him  with  an 

-i  3i  y 


intricate  financial  or  business  problem,  with  an  apparent 
confidence  that  that  lawyer  will  be  able  to  guide  the 
business  man  to  a  safe  conclusion  in  a  purely  business 
matter.  This  lawyer  says  that  he  makes  his  money  by 
doing  other  peoples  thinking  for  them.  It  was  DeToc- 
quiville  who  said  in  substance,  that  the  legal  profession 
represents  the  only  aristocracy  in  America,  the  aristoc- 
racy of  thinking  leadership. 

An  old  wag  in  our  county  used  to  tell  a  story  which 
illustrates  the  strange  feeling  of  distrust  and  dependence 
which  laymen  have  toward  lawyers.  One  layman  having 
recently  lost  a  small  law  suit  wound  up  a  vicious  tirade 
against  the  lawyers  by  saying,  "One  thing  is  sure,  no 
lawyer  will  ever  get  to  heaven."  The  second  layman  re- 
plied, "No  doubt  you're  right  about  that,  but  I  imagine 
that  most  of  them  will  be  just  outside  of  the  gate  doing 
their  best  to  help  the  rest  of  us  get  in." 

Few,  I  think,  will  endeavor  to  dispute  the  statement 
that  lawyers  are,  or  should  be,  the  most  influential  group 
of  citizens  in  every  community,  as  well  as  in  the  state, 
and  in  the  nation,  and  if  I  read  the  times  aright,  their 
influence  is  growing  as  time  passes.  Their  opportunities 
for  molding  public  opinion  are  so  many  and  so  constant, 
that  any  movement  which  receives  their  united  support 
could  scarcely  be  resisted. 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  no  task  that  the  state  can 
enter  upon  is  of  more  vital  importance  to  itself  and  to 
the  nation  than  the  education  of  its  lawyers.  In  my 
judgment,  the  State  of  Illinois  is  to  be  commended  for 
making  ample  provision  for  its  Law  School,  and  to  be 
congratulated  upon  its  sagacity  and  farsightedness  in 
seeing  to  it  that  its  most  influential  group  of  citizens  are 
trained  under  the  hand  and  eye  of  men  who  are  chosen 
for  their  special  fitness  for  their  task  of  fashioning  men 
into  leaders  of  the  right  sort. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  its  graduates  will,  in  a  large 
measure,  help  to  shape  the  future  trend  of  thought  in 

i  32  y 


their  respective  communities  in  Illinois,  and  in  many 
cases  the  trend  of  the  nation's  thinking,  surely  it  is  only 
by  producing  men  of  high  ideals,  sound  political  con- 
victions, and  unswerving  loyalty  that  this  College  of 
Law  can  meet  its  obligations  to  the  State  and  truly 
justify  its  existence.  Clearly  it  is  not  enough  that  this 
state  institution  give  its  students  a  thorough  technical 
training,  though  such  training  is  positively  essential.  It 
is  not  enough  that  its  graduates  should  leave  this  School 
equipped  to  compete  on  equal  terms  or  better  with  the 
graduates  of  other  schools  in  the  practice  of  their  pro- 
fession, though  I  am  sure  we  will  be  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing less  than  that.  The  students  in  this  School  must 
over  and  above  their  technical  training  be  fashioned  into 
real  men  who  appreciate  that  through  the  bounty  of  the 
State,  they  are  being  endowed  with  a  tremendous  power 
to  serve,  and  that  their  first  duty  is  to  the  State.  They 
must  be  imbued  with  a  deep  and  lasting  love  and  rever- 
ence for  the  constitution  and  laws  such  as  only  those 
can  have  who  know  and  appreciate  their  cost  and  value. 
Herein  lies  the  true  mission  of  this  College  of  Law,  and 
if  it  can  but  catch  the  vision  and  be  true  to  its  mission, 
it  will  not  only  justify  its  existence  but  its  ever  growing 
body  of  graduates  will  increasingly  become  a  mighty 
force  for  the  preservation  of  our  nation. 

And  never  was  the  nation's  need  for  such  support 
greater  than  now.  We  are  living  in  mighty  times.  Times 
when  the  thought  and  genius  of  man  have  burst  the 
bonds  of  old  limitations.  Man  is  marvelously  learning 
to  know  the  hitherto  unknowable  and  to  exercise  domin- 
ion over  forces  hitherto  beyond  control.  Intoxicated  by 
his  new  freedom,  all  limitations  have  become  irksome 
and  liberty  is  meaningless  to  him,  if  it  exacts  as  its  price 
obedience  to  law.  So  engrossed  is  he  in  attaining  and 
enjoying  new  power,  and  control  over  things  material, 
that  he  has  no  time  to  rule  and  no  disposition  to  be 
ruled.  The  unusual  learning  of  the  day  in  the  arts  and 

4  33  }■ 


sciences,  appears  to  be  more  than  counterbalanced,  even 
among  our  so  called  educated  classes,  by  an  appalling 
ignorance  concerning  the  sources  of  our  Government 
and  their  own  responsibilities  in  and  to  it.  Their  ignor- 
ance in  this  respect  is  equalled  only  by  their  lack  of  ap- 
preciation of  their  utter  dependence  on  the  government 
for  their  protection  in  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  prop- 
erty. This  decade  and  that  just  past  will  go  down  in  the 
history  of  our  nation  as  a  period  when  the  privileges  of 
free  government  were  enjoyed  without  thought  of  their 
cost  or  meaning  and  without  effort  to  teach  the  rising 
generation  their  cost  or  meaning.  Those  whose  duty  it 
was  to  teach  have  been  so  busily  engaged  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  present  and  so  eagerly  endeavoring  to  an- 
ticipate the  future,  that  they  have  lost  sight  of,  or 
ignored,  their  debt  to  the  past  and  their  responsibility  to 
the  present  and  the  future.  The  inevitable  result  is  seen 
in  the  present  chaotic  condition  which  prevails  in  the 
minds  of  our  citizens,  making  them  easy  prey  to  false 
doctrines  and  misleading  propaganda.  It  is  reflected  by 
a  growing  disrespect  and  irreverence  for  the  Constitu- 
tion and  laws  and  an  alarming  increase  in  crimes  of 
violence. 

The  increase  in  crime  rates  has  been  followed  by  out- 
cries from  many  quarters  charging  the  conditions  to  the 
laxity  of  law  enforcement  and  urging  the  courts  and  of- 
ficers to  remedy  the  situation  by  rigid  enforcement  of 
the  laws.  Then,  having  performed  their  duty  as  they 
conceive  it  by  passing  the  problems  on  to  the  courts  and 
the  officers  of  the  law  for  solution,  these  same  parties  in 
many  instances  go  about  their  business  and  hesitate 
not  at  all  to  join  the  hue  and  cry  against  the  laws  they 
do  not  like  and  to  violate  or  to  aid  and  abet  in  the  vio- 
lation of  such  laws.  With  support  like  that,  it  cannot 
be  hoped  that  courts  and  officers  of  the  law  will  be  able 
to  control  the  crime  situation  in  this  country,  however 
diligent  and  conscientious  may  be  their  efforts.    Every 

-{  34  }- 


one  agrees  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  courts  and  the  offi- 
cers to  use  their  utmost  endeavors  to  see  that  every  law 
is  enforced  as  written,  keeping  in  mind,  of  course,  that 
the  first  obligation  of  the  courts  is  to  administer  justice 
under  the  law. 

I  want  to  urge  here  today,  however,  that  an  effective 
solution  of  our  crime  problem  can  never  be  found  in  law 
enforcement  alone.  The  effective  solution  must  precede 
the  necessity  for  law  enforcement  and  eliminate  the  de- 
sire to  violate  the  law.  It  must  be  found  in  the  education 
of  our  citizens.  Basically,  this  education  must  first  be 
wisely  calculated  to  build  the  sterling  qualities  of  char- 
acter in  our  citizens,  for  in  the  end  the  survival  of  any 
government,  particularly  a  democracy,  is  utterly  de- 
pendent upon  the  character  of  its  people.  Secondly,  this 
education  must  give  to  the  citizens  a  thorough  under- 
standing of  the  theory  and  principle  of  our  government, 
and  above  all,  an  understanding  and  appreciation  of  the 
fact  and  privilege  of  self-government.  Add  to  this  a  vivid 
conception  of  the  hundreds  of  years  of  struggle  and  sac- 
rifice which  it  took  to  attain  this  privilege  and  we  will 
have  a  citizen  whose  attitude  toward  the  law  cannot  rea- 
sonably be  other  than  a  feeling  of  respect  and  reverence 
and  a  disposition  to  obey. 

In  Illinois,  our  ideal  of  a  citizen  and  statesman  is  our 
own  Abraham  Lincoln.  In  matters  of  government  we 
hang  upon  his  words  and  follow  with  implicit  faith  his 
teachings.  Let  me  quote  to  you  a  familiar  page  from 
his  speech  on  "The  Perpetuation  of  our  Political  Insti- 
tutions" delivered  when  he  was  only  28  years  of  age  but 
which  might  well  be  looked  upon  as  the  keynote  of  his 
great  life  of  devotion  to  his  country. 

Listen ! 

Let  every  American,  every  lover  of  liberty,  every  well  wisher  to 
his  posterity  swear  by  the  blood  of  the  Revolution  never  to  violate 
in  the  least  particular  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  never  to  tolerate 
their  violation  by  others.  As  the  patriots  of  seventy-six  did  to  the 
support  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  so  to  the  support  of 

-{  35  }- 


the  Constitution  and  laws  let  every  American  pledge  his  life,  his 
property  and  his  sacred  honor.  Let  every  man  remember  that  to 
violate  the  law  is  to  trample  on  the  blood  of  his  father,  and  to  tear 
the  charter  of  his  own  and  his  children's  liberty.  Let  reverence 
for  the  laws  be  breathed  by  every  American  mother  to  the  lisping 
babe  that  prattles  on  her  lap;  let  it  be  taught  in  schools,  in  sem- 
inaries and  colleges;  let  it  be  written  in  primers,  spelling  books,  and 
in  almanacs;  let  it  be  preached  from  the  pulpit,  proclaimed  in  legis- 
lative halls,  and  enforced  in  courts  of  justice.  And,  in  short  let  it 
become  the  political  religion  of  the  nation;  and  let  the  old  and  the 
young,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  grave  and  the  gay  of  all  sexes  and 
tongues  and  colors  and  conditions  sacrifice  unceasingly  upon  its 
altars. 

While  ever  a  state  of  feeling  such  as  this  shall  universally  or  even 
generally  prevail  throughout  the  nation,  vain  will  be  every  effort  and 
fruitless  every  attempt  subvert  to  our  nation's  freedom. 

When  I  pressingly  urge  strict  observance  of  all  the  laws,  let  me 
be  not  understood  as  saying  there  are  no  bad  laws.  I  mean  to  say 
no  such  thing.  But  I  do  mean  to  say  that  although  bad  laws,  if 
they  exist,  should  be  repealed  as  soon  as  possible,  still,  while  they 
continue  in  force,  for  the  sake  of  example  they  should  be  religiously 
observed. 

I  stated  that  these  words  of  Lincoln  uttered  in  his 
youth  may  well  be  looked  upon  as  the  keynote  of  his 
life  of  devotion  to  his  country.  In  like  manner  these 
words  may  well  become  the  inspiration  of  the  life  work 
of  every  graduate  of  this  institution.  I  have  referred  at 
length  to  the  strategic  and  controlling  position  of  in- 
fluence which  the  lawyer  occupies.  I  have  referred  to  his 
unexcelled  training  for  constructive  thinking  and  lead- 
ership which  causes  his  people  to  turn  to  him  for  counsel 
and  guidance.  Add  to  this  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
history  and  philosophy  of  free  government,  its  costs, 
privileges,  and  responsibilities,  and  it  becomes  evident 
that  in  addition  to  his  opportunity  for  lofty  service 
through  the  conscientious  performance  of  his  profes- 
sional duties,  he  has  the  opportunity  and  power  beyond 
measure  to  serve  his  nation  as  a  teacher  of  his  fellow 
men ;  who  will  say  that  I  am  overstating  the  truth  when 
I  add,  that  to  a  graduate  of  a  state  institution,  power  to 


i  36  }- 


serve  plus  opportunity  to  serve  means  obligation  to 
serve. 

And  hasn't  it  always  been  true  that  the  teachers  have 
ultimately  been  the  controlling  factors  in  every  civiliza- 
tion and  every  age?  In  keeping  with  this  historic  fact, 
have  not  the  teachers  in  the  great  state  law  colleges  of 
our  land  the  power  and  the  blessed  privilege  of  literally 
preserving  for  future  ages  the  institutions  of  free  gov- 
ernment by  molding  and  developing  the  men  and 
women  who  sit  as  disciples  at  their  feet  into  apostles  of 
democracy? 

I  know  that  this  opportunity  and  obligation  has  not 
in  the  past  and  is  not  now  being  overlooked  by  our 
teachers  of  law,  but  I  do  believe  that  the  trend  of  the 
times  makes  it  essential  that  as  the  days  go  by,  increas- 
ing attention  and  devotion  shall  be  given  to  this  great 
task.  What  will  it  profit  us  in  the  end  for  our  law  schools 
to  develop  lawyers  of  superlative  efficiency  if  our  people 
have  no  respect  or  regard  for  the  law  and  no  understand- 
ing or  appreciation  of  their  obligation  to  the  law?  But 
with  the  power  possessed  by  the  legal  profession  to  teach 
and  control  public  thought  and  action,  and  with  the 
training  of  the  embryo  lawyers  being  completely  in  the 
hands  of  our  law  schools  it  is  clear  that  if  our  teachers 
of  the  law  can  only  realize  and  faithfully  improve  their 
opportunity  and  obligation  to  furnish  the  necessary 
ground  work  and  inspiration  for  those  leaders  of  men, 
then,  and  not  until  then,  the  future  of  our  government 
will  be  secure  and  we  can  say  with  our  beloved  Lincoln, 
"vain  will  be  every  effort  and  fruitless  every  attempt  to 
subvert  our  nation's  freedom." 


i  37  y 


Address 

ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  COLLEGE 
OF  LAW 

Oliver  Albert  Harker 

Former  Dean  of  the  College  of  Law 


Wi 


hen  i  was  invited  by  the  program  committee 
to  present  a  paper  for  this  occasion  on  the 
growth  and  development  of  the  College  of 
Law,  I  was  told  that  I  had  been  so  selected  chiefly  for 
the  reason  that  I  have  in  some  capacity  been  connected 
with  the  Law  School  ever  since  it  was  organized.  I  re- 
gret exceedingly  that  my  absence  from  the  University 
and  the  serious  illness  of  Mrs.  Harker  in  a  hospital  at 
Carbondale  has  prevented  a  formal  paper.  I  must  rely 
therefore  upon  an  extemporaneous  talk  to  be  made  from 
notes  which  I  have  before  me. 

ORIGIN 

During  the  administration  of  Dr.  Peabody  there  was 
some  informal  talk  in  a  session  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
concerning  the  opening  of  a  law  school.  Three  members 
of  the  Board  were  quite  earnest  in  desiring  that  such  a 
school  be  established.  It  met  the  decided  opposition  of 
Dr.  Peabody,  then  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
as  Regent  and  Dr.  Edwards,  State  Superintendent  of 
Public  Instruction.  Other  members  were  opposed  be- 
cause of  lack  of  funds. 

Dr.  T.  J.  Burrill,  who  as  acting  Regent,  succeeded  Dr. 
Peabody,  favored  the  proposition  and  so  declared  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Trustees  in  December  1891 ;  and  at  the 
March  meeting  of  the  Board  in  1892  he  presented  a  pe- 
tition signed  by  a  number  of  students  enrolled  in  the 
University  asking  for  the  establishment  of  a  depart- 
ment of  law.  In  the  presentationship  of  the  petition 
Dr.  Burrill  urged  early  action,  and  at  the  same  session 
Mr.  Alex  McClain,  one  of  the  three  trustees  who  first 
advocated  the  establishment  of  such  a  school,  offered  a 
resolution  urging  the  obtaining  of  legislative  aid  for  the 
establishment  of  such  a  department.  No  legislative  ac- 
tion was  taken,  however.  At  that  time  it  was  quite  dif- 
ficult to  secure  any  kind  of  an  appropriation  for  the 

4  41  }- 


University  and  there  was  but  little  sentiment  in  that 
body  for  the  establishment  of  professional  schools. 

Shortly  after  Dr.  Draper  became  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity he  called  into  conference  one  of  the  men,  who  as 
trustee  had  favored  the  establishment  of  a  law  school 
when  Dr.  Peabody  was  Regent,  and  stated  that  if  the 
State  of  Illinois  was  to  have  a  University,  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  name,  it  should  establish  a  medical  school  and  a 
law  school.  With  the  determination,  characteristic  of 
the  man,  at  the  December  meeting  in  1896  he  presented 
to  the  Board  of  Trustees  the  following : 

The  time  has  arrived  when  it  seems  to  me  that  the  interests  of 
the  University  imperatively  demand  that  the  Board  shall  take  de- 
cided steps  looking  to  the  organization  of  a  Law  School.  This  can 
be  established  here  without  very  great  difficulty  or  expense.  In 
order  to  insure  it  at  the  opening  of  the  next  University  year  I 
recommend: 

1.  That  the  Board  appropriate  $3,500  for  the  salaries  of  in- 
structors during  the  year  1897-98. 

2.  That  the  Board  appropriate  $3,000  for  the  purchase  of  books. 

3.  That  the  Board  appropriate  $500  for  any  other  expenses 
necessarily  incurred  in  this  connection. 

4.  That  the  President  be  authorized  and  requested  to  present  to 
the  Board,  at  as  early  a  date  as  practicable,  detailed  plans  for  the 
contemplated  School. 

Very  truly  yours, 

A.  S.  Draper, 

President. 

At  that  meeting  it  was  voted  to  establish  a  Law  School 
and  appropriations  were  made  therefore  as  recom- 
mended. 

It  would  seem  that  an  appropriation  of  seven  thous- 
and dollars  for  the  salaries  of  law  professors,  the  pur- 
chase of  a  library,  and  other  equipment  was  rather 
meager.  Several  professors  in  the  Law  School  at  this 
time  are  receiving  salaries  in  excess  of  that  amount.  Un- 
der the  liberal  policy  recommended  by  President  Kinley 
there  was  expended  in  salaries  alone  $61,000. 

-4  42  }- 


PHYSICAL    EQUIPMENT 

When  it  was  decided  to  open  the  School  the  assign- 
ment of  rooms  became  a  serious  problem.  Three  were 
assigned  in  the  University  Hall,  one  of  which  was  used 
to  house  the  library  and  for  use  also  as  a  practice  court 
room,  and  two  other  rooms  for  the  purpose  of  lecture 
and  recitation.  The  School  opened  in  September  1897 
with  Dr.  Draper  as  acting  dean  and  Professors  G.  E. 
Gardner  and  C.  C.  Pickett  as  instructors.  Formal 
opening  exercises  were  held  in  the  old  University  Hall 
Chapel  to  which  prominent  lawyers  and  judges  of  the 
State  were  invited.  The  principal  speaker  was  Judge 
Wilkins,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois. 
In  these  meager  quarters  the  Law  School  continued  un- 
til the  construction  of  a  new  chemical  laboratory  was 
completed.  An  appropriation  was  then  made  for  the  re- 
modeling of  the  old  chemical  laboratory  into  a  Law 
School.  And  in  that  building  the  department  functioned 
up  to  a  few  months  ago. 

LIBRARY 

Starting  with  an  appropriation  of  three  thousand  dol- 
lars the  library  has  increased  from  year  to  year.  The 
Board  of  Trustees  has  been  quite  liberal  in  the  appro- 
priations for  such  equipment  and  we  now  have  a  library 
of  some  40,000  volumes,  valued  in  the  neighborhood  of 
$200,000.  I  am  proud  to  say  that  it  is  the  best  selected 
library  in  the  State  and  for  practical  purposes  is  not  ex- 
ceeded by  a  law  school  library  in  the  country. 

The  fireproof  book  stack  was  constructed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  taking  care  of  22,000  volumes.  When  the  num- 
ber had  outgrown  the  capacity  of  the  stackroom  alter- 
ations were  made  in  the  building  and  books  were  scat- 
tered over  various  parts  of  the  first  and  second  floors. 
The  greatest  embarrassment  under  which  the  depart- 
ment labored  was  library  room.  Installed  as  we  are  in 
this  building  we  can  easily  take  care  of  double  the  num- 

-{43}- 


ber  of  volumes  we  already  have.  I  have  seen  a  great 
number  of  law  school  buildings  in  the  Middle  West, 
Pacific  Coast,  and  in  the  South.  I  know  of  none  better 
adapted  to  law  school  work  than  this  one. 

FACULTY  EQUIPMENT 

During  the  time  that  President  Draper  was  acting 
dean  other  duties  prevented  his  taking  part  in  instruc- 
tional work,  that  was  left  to  Professors  Gardner,  Pickett, 
Drew,  and  Hughes. 

Dr.  James  Brown  Scott  was  retained  as  dean  in  1899 
and  held  that  position  for  four  years.  During  his  ad- 
ministration he  had  under  him  as  professors  and  in- 
structors: Professors  Pickett,  Drew,  Hughes,  Tooke, 
Northrup,  and  Dennis. 

President  Draper  conceived  the  idea  that  the  Law 
School  would  grow  in  favor  and  interest  by  securing  the 
co-operation  of  judges  of  the  various  courts  of  the  State. 
His  invitation  to  men  holding  judicial  positions  was  cor- 
dially accepted  and  resulted  in  outside  lectures  from 
time  to  time  and  the  conducting  of  a  well  organized 
practice  court.  For  six  years  moot  court  was  held  every 
Saturday  morning  by  one  or  the  other  of  the  three  judges 
of  the  Appellate  Court  of  the  Springfield  Division. 

Dr.  Scott  resigned  in  1903  and  I,  upon  the  recom- 
mendation of  President  Draper,  was  appointed  his  suc- 
cessor. During  the  thirteen  years  that  I  served  in  that 
capacity  quite  a  number  of  law  teachers  were  in  service. 
In  addition  to  Professors  Pickett,  Drew,  Hughes,  North- 
rup, and  Dennis  there  came  to  us  subsequently,  Profes- 
sor Frederick  Green,  still  a  member  of  the  faculty,  Pro- 
fessors George  L.  Clark,  Allen  E.  Rogers,  Berry  Gilbert, 
T.  B.  Cosgrove,  W.  G.  Hale,  Edward  H.  Decker,  Edward 
S.  Thurston,  John  N.  Pomeroy,  I.  M.  Wormser,  C.  G. 
Vernier,  Robert  L.  Hemy,  James  E.  Carpenter.  I  re- 
signed as  dean  in  1917  and  Professor  H.  W.  Ballantine 
was  appointed  my  successor.  He  continued  for  a  period 

-1 44  y 


of  four  years  during  which  Professors  W.  E.  Britton,  a 
graduate  of  the  Law  School,  and  Walter  L.  Summers 
were  added  to  the  faculty.  During  the  year  following 
the  resignation  of  Professor  Ballantine  I  again  filled  the 
office  of  dean,  and  for  the  following  year  Professor  H.  C. 
Jones  was  appointed  dean.  During  his  administration 
Professors  Hope,  Harno,  and  Goble  were  added.  After 
the  service  of  one  year  Dean  Jones  resigned  to  become 
dean  of  his  native  state,  Iowa,  and  Professor  Harno  was 
selected  as  dean. 

The  department  has  labored  under  considerable  em- 
barrassment because  of  lack  of  funds  to  retain  some  of 
the  best  professors  named.  Larger  salaries  were  offered 
by  other  institutions  and  for  that  reason  we  lost  such 
excellent  teachers  as  Thurston,  Vernier,  Hale,  Decker, 
Ballantine,  and  others. 

STUDENT  ATTENDANCE 

The  School  opened  with  an  enrollment  of  twenty- 
seven.  At  that  time  the  only  entrance  requirement  or 
requirement  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  law  degree  was 
four  years  work  in  an  accredited  high  school.  When  the 
School  was  established  there  was  no  preliminary  educa- 
tion requirement  for  a  candidate  for  admission  to  the 
bar.  Much  of  the  instruction  was  given  in  law  offices 
at  that  time.  The  only  requirement  was  two  years  of 
law  study  which  entitled  the  candidate  to  an  examina- 
tion. The  examination  before  that  time,  according  to 
statement  of  older  lawyers,  was  rather  perfunctory.  The 
young  man  desiring  to  enter  the  profession  became  a 
student  in  the  office  of  some  practicioner.  After  he  had 
studied  for  two  years  the  lawyer  with  whom  he  had  read 
would  make  a  motion  to  the  Circuit  Judge  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  committee  to  examine  the  applicant.  The 
Judge  accordingly  appointed  three  lawyers,  usually  non- 
residents. At  the  appointed  time  the  candidate  entered 
the  hotel  room  of  one  of  the  lawyers,  equipped  with 

-{  45  }■ 


cigars  and  certain  liquid  refreshments.  After  the  liquid 
refreshments  had  been  sampled  and  while  the  examiners 
were  smoking,  the  applicant  was  asked  what  books  he 
had  read,  and  the  length  of  time  which  he  had  remained 
in  the  office  of  the  practicioner.  After  answering  these 
questions  he  was  asked  if  he  thought  he  had  sufficient 
knowledge  to  give  a  client  legal  advice  and  to  conduct 
his  case  in  court.  Of  course,  the  answer  was  in  the  af- 
firmative. The  next  morning  the  committee  with  due 
solemnity  reported  that  they  had  made  full  examination 
of  the  applicant  and  found  him  qualified  to  practice  the 
profession.  A  certificate  of  the  Judge  and  State's  Attor- 
ney was  then  forwarded  to  the  Supreme  Court  and  a 
license  to  practice  law  followed.  Of  course  when  this 
Law  School  was  established  that  was  not  the  method  of 
conducting  the  examination.  Examinations  were  held 
before  the  Appellate  Court  of  the  various  districts  of  the 
State.  Subsequently  the  Supreme  Court  adopted  what  is 
known  as  rule  39  relating  to  the  admission  to  the  bar, 
whereby  an  applicant  was  to  be  examined  by  a  board  of 
five  examiners.  The  preliminary  education  required  un- 
der the  rule  was  to  be  equal  to  that  of  a  graduate  of  an 
Illinois  high  school,  not  a  very  strict  requirement  be- 
cause there  were  many  so-called  high  schools  in  the 
State  doing  no  better  work  than  grade  schools.  Repre- 
sentatives from  this  School,  University  of  Chicago  Law 
School,  and  Northwestern  Law  School  petitioned  the 
Supreme  Court  to  change  the  rule  so  as  to  require  the 
preliminary  education  to  consist  of  four  years  of  work 
in  a  high  school  accredited  by  the  University  of  Illinois. 
That  was  the  rule  that  then  obtained  in  the  University. 
The  Supreme  Court  referred  the  matter  to  the  Chief 
Justice  with  power  to  act,  but  the  Chief  Justice  because 
of  opposition  of  other  law  schools  in  the  State  declined 
to  act.  I  am  proud  to  say  that  this  School  has  always 
insisted  upon  extended  preliminary  education.  Shortly 
after  I  became  dean  our  faculty  recommended  not  only 

-{  46  }- 


the  four  years  of  high  school  training  but  also  the  addi- 
tion of  two  years  of  college  work  of  a  candidate  for  the 
law  degree.  This  department  with  the  aid  of  the  Board 
of  Bar  Examiners  kept  at  the  Supreme  Court  to  raise  the 
preliminary  education  requirement  to  that,  and  today 
rule  39  requires  the  candidate  for  admission  to  the  bar 
to  have  not  only  the  four  years  in  a  high  school  but  also 
two  years  in  a  reputable  college  of  the  State.  We  feel 
that  we  have  accomplished  something  in  the  direction  of 
raising  the  standard. 

Before  1903  the  attendance  had  not  been  over  seventy. 
The  enrollment  increased  during  the  time  that  the  four 
years  requirement  was  new  so  that  the  enrollment  one 
year  amounted  to  two  hundred  and  fourteen.  When  the 
additional  requirement  of  two  years  of  college  work  was 
established  it  had  the  effect  of  decreasing  the  attendance. 
Students  coming  to  the  University  were  first  required  to 
earn  sixty  credits  before  entering  the  Law  School.  For 
the  first  two  or  three  years  the  enrollment  decreased 
from  two  hundred  to  something  less  than  one  hundred. 
The  school  has  grown  in  favor,  however,  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  the  enrollment  is  now  four  hundred.  President 
Kinley  and  the  Board  of  Trustees  have  maintained  a 
very  liberal  attitude  toward  the  department.  Salaries 
paid  compare  favorably  with  the  best  law  schools  in  the 
country.  They  are  above  what  the  most  of  the  law 
schools  are  now  paying.  I  can  say  without  embarrass- 
ment, because  I  am  now  on  the  retired  list,  that  we  have 
as  strong  a  faculty  as  in  any  law  school  in  the  country. 
Our  salaries  are  such  that  we  hope  to  retain  the  good 
men  we  now  have. 

The  College  of  Law  entertains  considerable  pride  be- 
cause of  the  success  of  its  graduates  after  being  admitted 
to  the  bar.  A  few  years  ago  while  I  attended  a  joint  session 
of  the  Illinois  State's  Attorney  Association  and  the  Illi- 
nois State  Society  on  Criminal  Law  and  Criminology,  I 
found  in  attendance  twenty-five  graduates  of  this  School 

1 47  y 


that  were  filling  the  office  of  either  State's  Attorney  or 
Assistant  State's  Attorney  in  the  State.  Several  of  our 
graduates  have  been  elected  to  Congress,  quite  a  number 
to  the  State  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  a 
number  to  the  position  of  Circuit  Judge  in  the  State. 
One  is  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  another 
Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  North  Dakota,  and  an- 
other of  the  Supreme  Court  of  China.  Both  the  judges 
of  the  United  States  Court  for  this  district,  Judges  Lind- 
ley  and  Wham,  are  graduates  of  this  School.  The  United 
States  District  Attorney  and  his  two  assistants  are  also 
graduates  of  this  School.  The  fine  record  which  our 
graduates  have  made,  has  enlisted  the  support  of  the 
lawyers  of  the  State  pretty  generally  for  the  School.  It 
has  been  the  constant  policy  of  those  engaged  in  this 
department  to  bring  the  School  in  as  close  affiliation 
with  the  law  making  powers  of  the  State  and  the  State 
Bar  Association  as  possible.  I  think  that  has  been  duly 
appreciated  because  frequently  within  the  last  fifteen 
or  twenty  years  members  of  our  faculty  have  appeared 
on  invitation  before  legislative  committees  in  Springfield 
to  discuss  mooted  questions  of  court  procedure  and 
other  proposed  legislation.  During  all  that  time  mem- 
bers of  our  faculty  have  been  selected  as  members  of 
many  committees  of  the  State  Bar  Association. 

If  the  liberal  policy  exhibited  by  President  Kinley  and 
the  Board  of  Trustees  with  reference  to  this  school  con- 
tinues, I  feel  that  its  prospects  are  better  than  ever  be- 
fore. 


4  48  y 


Address 

LAW  AS  A  PROFESSION  AND  AN  ART 

James  Brown  Scott 

First  Dean  of  the  College  of  Law 

Trustee  and  Secretary  of  the  Carnegie 

Endowment  for  International  Peace 


It  is  customary,  on  occasions  such  as  this,  to  speak 
of  the  law — often  of  its  teaching,  and  assuredly  of 
the  rewards,  whether  in  the  form  of  wealth  or  of 
political  or  social  position,  which  are  in  store  for  the 
successful  practitioner.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
strangers  who  visit  the  University,  and  who  are  honored 
with  an  invitation  to  address  law  students,  can  be 
trusted  to  acquit  themselves  of  what  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  is  expected  of  them  in  this  line.  In  any  event,  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  compete  with  them.  In  times  past, 
I  have  said  something  of  these  matters,  although  I  have 
never,  here  or  elsewhere,  held  up  to  young  men  and 
women  on  the  threshold  of  their  careers,  the  "golden 
calf"  for  worship ;  nor  have  I  ever  intimated  that  the  re- 
ward of  success  is  to  be  measured  in  the  coin  of  the 
realm.  It  is  at  best  but  one  form  of  success,  and  not  of 
the  highest  type.  Rather  would  my  ambition  be  that 
your  lives  be  many-sided ;  that  every  day  may  bring  you 
something  which  was  not  yours  before,  as  it  assuredly 
will,  even  if  you,  yourselves,  give  to  others  more  of  the 
things  of  the  spirit  than  you  receive  from  them. 

Some  there  are  who  make  their  own  environment  as 
well  as  that  of  ours ;  and  we  can  never  be  over  grateful 
for  their  labors,  of  which  we  are  too  often  the  uncon- 
scious beneficiaries.  In  the  lifetime  of  my  dear  friend, 
and  your  honored  President,  who  is  still  vibrating  with 
that  intellectual  energy  which  he  generously  communi- 
cates to  all  with  whom  he  comes  into  contact,  this  Uni- 
versity has  come  into  being — once  a  few  barren  acres, 
converted  into  the  center  and  guardian  of  a  growing  and 
indigenous  civilization. 

Of  this  University — our  French  friends  would  call  it 
la  cite  univer  sit  aire — the  College  of  Law  is  an  integral 
part.  Its  students  may  avail  themselves  of  its  courses  in 
preparation  for  law,  or  in  connection  with  its  actual 
study,  in  so  far  as  their  instructors  are  of  the  opinion 

-f  51J- 


that  culture  is  not  amiss  in  the  lawyer,  and  that  art  and 
literature  and  the  things  of  the  spirit  are  not  wholly 
alien  to  its  practice. 

Some  twenty-eight  years  ago,  when  I  had  the  honor 
to  enter  upon  the  performance  of  my  duties  as  Dean  of 
the  Law  School,  a  modest  suite  of  rooms  was  assigned  to 
us  in  the  main  building.  A  year  later,  the  School  was 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  college  and,  the  chemists  for- 
saking their  laboratory,  the  College  was  installed  in 
their  deserted  quarters.  At  once  the  law  students  de- 
veloped an  esprit  de  corps,  taking  their  part  in  the  life 
of  the  University — literary,  social  and  athletic.  Today 
the  College  leaves  its  "outgrown  shell,  by  life's  unresting 
sea" — installing  itself  in  another  deserted  building,  the 
Library,  on  its  way  upward  and  onward,  to  a  building 
of  its  own. 

If  the  atmosphere  of  chemistry,  with  its  retorts — the 
law  men,  I  opine,  supplying  the  "torts" — has  counted  for 
anything  in  the  lives  of  the  young  men  and  women 
privileged  to  begin  and  to  complete  their  legal  studies  in 
the  University  of  Illinois,  what  shall  we  expect  of  the 
newer  atmosphere,  redolent  of  literature,  and  "bookish" 
to  a  degree,  of  which  from  now  on,  they  are  the  legiti- 
mate and  duly  constituted  heirs  ?  The  affect  may  be  pre- 
dicted. 

Once  upon  a  time,  we  are  told, — it  happens  every  day 
— a  young  and  progressive  family  left  its  outgrown  quar- 
ters, exchanging  the  modest  "home"  for  an  imposing 
"residence."  The  new  carpets  required  new  furnishings, 
the  new  furnishings,  a  new  wardrobe  for  Madame,  and 
more  elegant  manners  on  the  part  of  the  Lord  and  Mas- 
ter. Unconsciously,  they  were  fitting  themselves  into 
the  newer  atmosphere.  They  were  taking  their  place  in 
society.  Today  the  Law  School  assumes  its  place  in  the 
University,  and  will  necessarily  yield  to  the  subtle  but 
all-prevading  atmosphere  of  the  immediate  present,  and 
of  the  ever-growing  future. 

•{  52  }• 


This  being  so,  and  indeed  inevitable,  Mrs.  Scott  and  I 
have  thought  that  we  might  perhaps  be  permitted  to 
contribute  our  mite  to  the  "furnishings"  of  the  newer 
residence,  to  which  I  myself  was  a  frequent  visitor  in  the 
days  when  she  was  a  student  of  the  Library  School,  then 
installed  in  this  very  building. 

But  before  speaking  of  this,  let  me  say  something  of 
law,  as  I  conceive  it  to  be,  and  its  relation  to  what  are 
sometimes  called  the  "polite  arts."  As  it  is  often  easier 
to  say  what  a  thing  is  not,  than  what  it  is,  I  shall  begin 
in  that  way. 

Law  is  not  a  trade ;  it  is  not  a  craft ;  it  is  a  profession ; 
it  is  an  art.  It  should  therefore  be  conceived  of  as  a 
profession  and  as  an  art.  It  should  be  included  among 
the  arts,  and  a  knowledge  of  it  and  of  the  space  which 
it  occupies  in  the  world's  progress  should  form  a  part  of 
the  intellectual  equipment  of  men  and  women  of  taste 
and  refinement.  Such  a  knowledge  is  not,  I  beg  to  as- 
sure you,  inconsistent  with  artistic  feeling  and  literary 
-expression.  There  was  a  day  when  the  common  law  of 
England — of  which  the  English-speaking  world  is  so 
justly  proud — was  regarded  as  a  gnarled  and  wayward 
branch  of  the  law,  from  which,  at  best,  but  crabbed  fruit 
might  be  expected.  If  I  may  change  the  figure — it  spoke 
the  language  of  the  gentleman,  it  is  said,  for  the  first 
time,  through  Blackstone,  whose  elaborate  and  dignified 
style  has  preserved  his  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of 
England  from  those  who  would  divorce  fact  and  ac- 
curacy from  literature  and  its  formal  expression.  But 
the  majestic  phrase  of  Blackstone  has  delivered  him  of 
the  enemy,  and  his  Commentaries  in  addition  to  educat- 
ing his  fellow-countrymen  in  the  then  distant  colonies 
of  the  Western  World,  are  still  performing  that  function 
in  these  United  States  of  America,  where  they  are  re- 
garded as  not  only  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  law, 
but  as  the  masterpiece  of  its  literary  and  legal  expo- 
sition. 

i  53  y 


When,  but  a  few  years  ago,  the  Bench  and  Bar  of  Eng- 
land invited  the  Bench  and  Bar  of  the  United  States  to 
be  their  guests  in  the  home  country,  receiving  them  with 
pomp  and  splendor  in  the  halls  of  Westminster,  where 
the  law  courts  had  for  centuries,  and  before  which  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed,  in- 
deed, even  King  and  noble  offender  had  stood  before  the 
judges  of  England,  the  American  Bar  Association,  de- 
siring to  leave  an  appropriate  memorial  of  their  passing, 
could  only  think  of  Blackstone ;  and  there  will  stand  in 
the  halls  of  Westminster  for  all  time,  as  we  hope,  a 
magnificent  marble,  perpetuating  the  features  of  the 
Commentator,  as  he  himself  has  given  to  the  laws  of 
England  an  imperishable  monument. 

As  example  is  better  than  precept,  Blackstone,  through 
his  Commentaries,  has  given  us  Kent,  whose  Commen- 
taries on  American  Law  are  not  unworthy  of  their  model. 
They  do  not  have  the  magnificence — perhaps  we  might 
say  the  grandiloquence  of  the  Englishman  writing  his 
lectures  at  the  University  of  Oxford,  for  which  he  made 
careful  and  elaborate  preparation.  He  was  annoyed,  as 
he  says,  by  disturbances  o'nights,  in  the  lodgings  above 
him  in  the  inn  of  his  court,  then  occupied  by  one  Oliver 
Goldsmith — his  "reveling  neighbor"  as  he  called  him. 
However,  the  Commentaries  of  James  Kent  are  not 
without  their  purple  patches — not,  perhaps  so  deeply 
colored,  and  upon  such  an  elaborate  pattern,  but  never- 
theless, purple  patches.  Let  me  read  you  two  passages 
in  which  Kent  speaks  for  himself.  The  first  is  on  Roman 
Law: 

It  was  created  and  gradually  matured  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber, 
by  the  successive  wisdom  of  Roman  statesmen,  magistrates,  and 
sages;  and  after  governing  the  greatest  people  in  the  ancient  world 
for  the  space  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  centuries,  and  undergoing  ex- 
traordinary vicissitudes  after  the  fall  of  the  western  empire,  it  was 
revived,  admired,  and  studied  in  modern  Europe,  on  account  of 
the  variety  and  excellence  of  its  general  principles.  ...  So  true, 
it  seems,  are  the  words  of  D'Aguesseau,  that  "the  grand  destinies 

-{ 54  y 


of  Rome  are  not  yet  accomplished;  she  reigns  throughout  the  world 
by  her  reason,  after  having  ceased  to  reign  by  her  authority." 

The  second  is  a  much  admired  description  of  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  as  a  lawyer: 

He  traced  doctrines  to  their  source,  or  probed  them  to  their 
foundations,  and  at  the  same  time  paid  the  highest  deference  and 
respect  to  sound  authority.  The  reported  cases  do  no  kind  of  jus- 
tice to  his  close  and  accurate  logic;  to  his  powerful  and  comprehen- 
sive intellect,  to  the  extent  of  his  knowledge,  or  the  eloquence  of 
his  illustrations.  We  may  truly  apply  to  the  efforts  of  his  mind  the 
remark  of  Mr.  Justice  Buller,  in  reference  to  the  judicial  opinions 
of  another  kindred  genius  [Lord  Mansfield],  that  "principles  were 
stated,  reasoned  upon,  enlarged,  and  explained,  until  those  who 
heard  him  were  lost  in  admiration  at  the  strength  and  stretch  of  the 
human  understanding." 

Of  Blackstone  and  Kent  as  Commentators,  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Stephen,  a  learned  lawyer,  distinguished  judge,  and 
accomplished  author,  has  expressed  the  opinion  that,  "If 
we  accept  the  Commentaries  of  Chancellor  Kent,  which 
were  suggested  by  Blackstone,  I  should  not  doubt 
whether  any  work  intended  to  describe  the  whole  of  the 
law  of  any  country  possessed  anything  like  the  same 


merits." 


Blackstone's  career  at  the  Bar,  which  caused  him  to 
be  raised  to  the  Bench,  and  his  experience  as  a  Judge, 
are  but  incidents  which  long  since  would  have  passed 
from  the  minds  of  men,  were  it  not  for  the  connection 
between  his  law  and  world  literature.  And  James  Kent's 
services  as  a  Chief  Justice  and  Chancellor  of  New  York — 
great  as  they  were — would  be  as  nothing,  to  the  standing 
which  he  has  because  of  his  Commentaries,  and  the  con- 
nection of  his  law  with  the  world's  literature. 

We  live  in  an  age  when  the  iconoclast  wanders  "whith- 
ersoever he  listeth,"  depriving  many  a  pedestal  of  its 
statue.  But  recently,  the  "real"  Washington  was  pre- 
sented in  biographical  form,  and  the  human  frailties  to 
which  even  he  was  alleged  to  have  fallen  heir,  recounted. 
When  the  present  President  of  the  United  States  was 

4  55  y 


asked  his  opinion  of  his  illustrious  predecessor,  it  is  re- 
ported that,  looking  from  the  White  House  window  to- 
wards the  Potomac,  he  smiled  and  remarked,  "His 
monument  is  still  standing.'' 

The  dry-as-dusts  of  legal  lore  have  laid  unholy  hands 
upon  Blackstone  and,  in  a  lesser  degree,  upon  Kent; 
but  the  monument  of  each  still  stands.  If  you  have  any 
doubt  why  this  is  so,  let  me  commend  to  you  a  reading 
of  the  Commentaries  of  one  and  the  other — not  for  the 
law  of  either  country,  but  as  literature  of  both ;  and  you 
will  be  encouraged,  perhaps,  to  cultivate  a  literary  style 
before  the  court,  or  in  the  study,  should  you  endeavor 
to  give  adequate  and  acceptable  expression  to  your 
views  upon  a  legal  topic. 


I  am  sure  that  Frederic  William  Maitland,  the  out- 
standing lawyer  of  our  generation  who  wrote  of  law,  and 
who  made  literature  while  cultivating  law,  would,  if  he 
were  alive,  agree  with  these  views ;  and  I  am  sure,  also, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois,  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  the  World,  would  say  a  word  for  Blackstone  and 
for  Kent — two  authors  through  whose  Commentaries 
he  got  his  knowledge  of  the  law  and  mayhap  his  feeling 
for  style. 

I  have  said  that  law  is  neither  a  trade  nor  a  craft.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  better  to  say  that  it  should  be  neither. 
It  is  one  or  the  other,  or  both,  according  to  those  who 
practice  it.  It  is  a  trade  to  those  who  look  upon  it  merely 
as  a  livelihood.  It  is  a  craft  at  the  same  time  to  the 
worldly  practitioner,  and  it  may  be  a  craft  in  another 
and  baser  sense  of  the  word.  It  will  be  as  the  lawyer 
cares  to  make  it.  The  character  of  the  man  will  ennoble 
and,  in  rarer  cases,  glorify,  any  calling ;  the  character  of 
the  man  may  find  a  way  of  debasing  the  purest  metal.  It 
should  be  a  profession  to  those  trained  in  reputable  law 
schools,  and  I  would  like  to  think  that  the  question  is 


-{ 56  y 


decided  for  most,  if  not  for  all  of  the  students,  before 
their  graduation,  by  association  with  the  young  men  and 
the  young  women  whom  they  meet  day  by  day  in  the 
classrooms,  and  with  their  instructors  in  and  out  of 
the  classrooms,  who  should  in  their  bearing,  in  their 
point  of  approach,  and  in  their  ways  of  life  comport 
themselves  as  members  of  a  learned  profession,  and  in- 
sensibly form  the  ambition  of  the  students  coming  into 
their  presence,  to  show,  themselves,  whether  in  their  of- 
fices or  in  courts  of  justice,  that  the  gentleman  is  com- 
patible with  the  lawyer,  and  that  the  lawyer  is  out  of 
place  in  the  profession  if  he  does  not  manifest  himself 
in  thought,  in  word,  and  in  deed,  to  be  a  gentle-man  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  speak  of  women  as  gentlewomen. 

Without  underrating  the  knowledge  of  law  which  stu- 
dents of  a  law  school  are  expected  to  acquire,  I  cannot 
rid  myself  of  the  belief,  which  is  to  me  as  an  obsession, 
that  many  a  student,  and  a  good  student  at  that,  will  get 
more  from  his  professors  than  he  does  from  his  courses ; 
and  that  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  school  and  its  im- 
mediate surroundings,  and  of  the  University,  of  which 
it  is  a  part,  he  will  carry  the  mark,  evidenced  in  his  per- 
son and  in  his  demeanor,  of  one  who  has  lived  among 
the  things  which  make  for  refinement.  A  law  school 
disconnected  from  a  university  is  better  than  a  law  of- 
fice; a  law  school  connected  with  a  university  has  the 
standards  and  the  ideals  of  a  university,  and  the  years, 
however  full  they  are  of  law,  are  fuller  still  of  the  broad- 
ening influences  of  the  university — indefinable,  inde- 
scribable, and  yet  apparent  to  the  casual  observer. 

It  is  interesting  to  hear  graduates  who  have  passed 
well  along  the  highway  of  life,  and  who  relate  their  ex- 
periences, talk  of  their  early  days.  So  far  as  I  can  recall, 
they  do  not  speak  of  their  courses,  but  of  the  men  who 
professed  those  courses;  rarely  of  their  ability  as  pro- 
fessors or  lecturers,  but  much  of  their  ways  and  of  their 
manners,  which  seem  to  have  made  the  deepest  impres- 

1  57  }- 


sion  because  it  is  the  abiding  effect.  Those  who  have 
helped  the  iriost  are  often  those  who  have  taught  the 
least,  but  who  have,  somehow,  entered  into  the  lives  of 
their  students,  and  who,  in  losing  themselves,  have 
gained  immortality  in  the  lives  of  others. 

But  doubtless  you  suspect  these  things  already.  You 
have,  as  I,  heard  others  discourse  of  their  earlier  days, 
and  others  will  hear  you,  and  wonder  how  it  is  that  char- 
acter so  far  surpasses  mere  learning  as  to  be  remem- 
bered when  the  lesson  of  the  day  has  passed  with  the 
day. 

The  best  school,  they  say,  is  the  school  of  experience ; 
and  the  best  law  school  is  made  up  of  those,  either  at  the 
Bar  or  on  the  Bench,  who  have  glorified  the  profession. 
Not  the  least  advantage  of  belonging  to  a  profession  is 
that  you  come  into  contact  with  all  of  those  who  have 
preceded  you,  just  as  some  of  you  may  come  into  con- 
tact with  those  who  are  to  follow.  You  are  brothers-in- 
law,  as  it  were,  of  the  multitudes  who  have  gone  before 
you.  You  are  bone  of  their  bone,  and  flesh  of  their  flesh. 
They  have  made  your  traditions,  and  you  are  making 
the  traditions  of  those  who  are  to  follow.  This  is  an 
ennobling  conception  of  your  profession  and,  in  itself,  an 
incentive  not  to  stumble  and  fall. 

Most  of  the  multitude  are  nameless,  but  of  the  many 
called,  some  few  are  chosen,  and  you  may,  when  you 
will,  commune  with  these  chosen  few.  The  triumphs  of 
the  lawyers  who  are  merely  successful,  are  evanescent. 
Those  who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  represent  prin- 
ciples and  to  cause  them  to  prevail  unite  their  names 
with  the  principles  which  they  saved. 

During  the  trying  days  of  the  French  Revolution  the 
advocates  of  political  liberty  had  a  hard  time  of  it  in 
England,  a  still  harder  time  in  Scotland  and,  as  you  can 
well  imagine,  the  hardest  in  Ireland.  Habeas  corpus  was 
suspended,  and  the  prisons  were  full  of  worthy  people 
whose  only  crime  was  the  advocacy  of  political  and  per- 

4  58  }- 


sonal  liberty — feelings  awakened  in  them  by  the  French 
Revolution,  whose  excesses,  however,  had  made  the  lot 
of  their  sympathizers  in  the  British  Isles  uncomfortable, 
when  not  personally  endangered.  In  the  last  two  decades 
of  the  Eighteenth  Century  the  Government  of  England 
appears  to  have  honestly  believed  that  it  should  make  an 
example  of  political  prisoners,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
spread  of  what  the  governing  class  of  the  day  was  pleased 
to  term  the  "revolutionary  and  subversive  ideals  of 
France."  These  prisoners,  martyrs  to  the  cause  of  lib- 
erty, found  a  defender  in  Thomas  Erskine,  of  whom 
Lord  John  Russell  finely  and  truly  said  that  he  had  "the 
tongue  of  Cicero,  and  the  soul  of  Hampden."  His  ad- 
dresses to  the  juries,  in  these  most  hazardous  of  cases 
produced  acquittal,  and  they  are  today,  as  they  were 
when  delivered,  models  of  forensic  eloquence.  He  was 
later  Lord  Chancellor,  but  his  reputation  is  not  of  the 
wool  sack,  but  of  the  courts  of  justice  in  which  he  made 
freedom  of  opinion  the  patrimony  of  the  humblest.  He 
was  a  youngster  who  had  gone  from  Edinburg  to  Lon- 
don to  seek  fame  and  fortune,  and  to  find  immortality. 
His  brother  Henry,  older  and  already  distinguishing 
himself  at  the  Bar,  remained  in  Edinburg,  and  in  that 
capital  of  Scotland,  then  termed,  and  perhaps  not  un- 
justly, the  modern  Athens,  he  likewise  defended  the  vic- 
tims of  political  oppression.  The  addresses  which  he 
pronounced  on  these  occasions  have  not  come  down  to 
us,  but  he  is  said  by  the  most  competent  of  authorities  to 
have  been  even  a  better  speaker  than  his  brother 
Thomas.  Lord  Brougham,  himself  an  orator  of  no  mean 
ability,  has  said  to  him :  "If  I  were  to  name  the  most  con- 
summate exhibition  of  forensic  talent  that  I  ever  wit- 
nessed, whether  in  the  skilful  conduct  of  the  argument, 
the  felicity  of  the  copious  illustration,  the  cogency  of  the 
reasoning,  or  the  dexterous  appeal  to  the  prejudices  of 
the  court,  I  should  without  hesitation  at  once  point  to 
his  address   (hearing  in  presence)  on  Maitland's  case; 

i  59  }- 


and  were  my  friend  Lauderdale  alive,  to  him  I  should 
appeal,  for  he  heard  it  with  me,  and  came  away  declar- 
ing that  his  brother  Thomas  (Lord  Erskine)  never  sur- 
passed— nay,  he  thought  never  equalled  it."  And  Lord 
Jeffery,  whose  judgments  were  not  overtempered  with 
mercy,  records  that,  "In  his  profession,  indeed,  all  his 
wit  was  argument,  and  each  of  his  delightful  illustra- 
tions a  material  step  in  his  reasoning."  Like  his  younger 
brother,  he  was  a  liberal,  and  like  him,  for  a  time  he 
held  office  in  a  liberal  government ;  yet  his  fame  is  that 
of  his  brother,  and  is  equally  secure :  a  defender  of  the 
defenceless,  and  a  protector  of  political  liberty.  His 
monument  was  in  every  honest  heart,  and  today  in 
Edinburg,  on  the  house  in  which  he  was  born,  a  stranger 
passing  that  way  will  read  the  inscription  that,  "No  poor 
man  wanted  bread  while  Harry  Erskine  lived." 

Of  Ireland,  I  have  said  that  the  situation  was  even 
worse.  There,  too,  where  adulation  was  the  highway  to 
preferment,  and  silence  the  only  safety,  the  defenceless 
found  an  Erskine  in  John  Philpot  Curran,  who,  for- 
gotten as  a  Master  of  the  Rolls,  is  deathless  at  the  Bar. 
On  one  occasion  when  he  was  defending  a  political  pris- 
oner, the  soldiers,  with  whom  the  courtroom  was  packed, 
threatened  personal  violence.  Curran,  turning  to  them 
cried,  "You  may  assassinate  me,  but  you  cannot  intimi- 
date me!"  Of  him,  too,  there  is  a  tribute,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Erskines ;  more  agreeable  to  him,  and  assuredly 
more  encouraging  to  us  than  monuments  of  marble  or 
of  brass.  "There  never  was  so  honest  an  Irishman," 
was  Daniel  O'ConnelPs  opinion  of  Curran. 

Modern  England  is  not  only  free,  but  it  is  perhaps  the 
most  democratic  of  countries.  Scotland,  in  Gladstone's 
time,  was  the  support  of  that  great  Liberal,  who  used  to 
speak  of  "us  Scotch  members"  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  And  today  there  is  a  Free  State  of  Ire- 
land, with  its  minister  plenipotentiary  at  Washington. 

I  would  not  say  of  these  great  men,  for  fear  of  making 

-{ 60  y 


them  blush  if  they  should  hear  my  voice,  that  it  "pays" 
to  have  principles ;  but  they  are  witnesses  that  principles 
are  good  things  in  themselves,  and  good  for  those  who 
have  them.  To  the  credit  of  our  profession  they  were 
lawyers  with  whom  law  was  neither  a  trade  nor  a  craft, 
but  a  profession  and  an  art. 


Of  the  nameless  throngs  who  have  passed  through 
courts  of  justice,  we  still  retain  memories  of  some  who 
tarried  for  a  moment  on  the  Bench.  Their  monuments 
are  the  judgments  which  they  delivered  in  law  suits  tried 
before  them ;  they  are  preserved  in  the  law  reports,  and 
their  leading  cases  are  the  texts  through  which  we  of 
America  are  learning  our  law,  by  means  of  the  case 
method,  which,  for  the  moment  at  least,  has  replaced 
every  other.  While  it  cannot,  perhaps,  be  said  of  all  of 
the  judges  that  they  were  the  most  eminent  lawyers  of 
their  time,  they  were,  nevertheless,  leaders  at  the  Bar, 
and  were  so  considered  by  their  professional  brethern. 
We  may,  if  we  but  will,  enter  into  relations  with  them, 
and  spend  an  hour  or  two  in  their  company,  or,  indeed, 
a  whole  evening,  if  we  so  desire.  We  have  only  to  take 
from  the  shelves  Foss'  Lives  of  the  Judges,  a  series  of 
nine  moderate  volumes  carrying  the  lives  of  the  Judges 
of  England  from  the  earliest  days  until  1864,  the  date 
of  the  ninth  volume.  And  if  nine  volumes  seem  appal- 
ling, you  can,  in  a  single  volume,  possess  yourself  of 
Foss'  Biographia  Juridica  containing  shorter  biogra- 
phies of  the  judges,  arranged  in  alphabetical,  instead  of 
the  chronological  order  of  the  longer  series.  Here,  you 
will  have  authentic  information  of  the  sages  of  the  law 
who  honored  the  Bench ;  of  Lord  Chief  Justice  Sir  Ed- 
ward Coke,  whose  name  will  forever  remain  connected 
with  the  Petition  of  Rights ;  of  Lord  High  Chancellor  Sir 
Francis  Bacon,  who  stumbled  and  fell  from  the  wool 
sack ;  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and  the 


i  6i  y 


embodiment  of  personal  integrity  and  the  model  of 
judges ;  of  Sir  John  Holt,  who,  after  a  wayward  youth 
became  a  Lord  Chief  Justice  "without  fear  and  without 
reproach."  Tradition  has  it  that  while  visiting  in  jail  a 
former  friend  of  University  days,  whom  he  had  tried  for 
felony,  Holt  inquired  of  their  other  companions.  "Ah, 
my  Lord,"  replied  the  culprit,  "they  are  all  hanged  but 
myself  and  your  Lordship."  Then,  too,  Sir  Heneage 
Finch,  who  as  Lord  Chancellor  Nottingham  was  des- 
tined to  be  the  founder  of  modern  equity;  of  Lord 
Hardwicke,  for  many  years  Chancellor,  and  one  of  the 
glories  of  common  law  as  well  as  of  chancery;  of  Lord 
Eldon,  whose  name  has  become  almost  synonymous 
with  equity ;  of  Sir  William  Grant,  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
as  expeditious  as  he  was  sound  and  sure,  equally  com- 
petent in  international  law;  Sir  William  Scott,  later 
Lord  Stowell,  a  brother  of  Eldon,  the  greatest  of  ad- 
miralty judges  in  England,  and  one  of  the  greatest  ex- 
pounders of  international  law  from  the  Bench.  And 
among  the  many  common  law  judges,  whom  I  have 
overlooked,  to  mention  those  who  distinguished  them- 
selves at  the  Chancery  Bar  and  the  Bench,  I  would  add 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Mansfield,  whose  name  is  the  most 
famous  in  the  annals  of  English  magistrates,  in  so  far  as 
the  judge  may  be  considered  a  magistrate;  Lord  Chief 
Justices  Kenyon,  Ellenborough  and  Tindal,  to  end  with 
Baron  Parke,  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  later  raised  to 
the  peerage  as  Lord  Wensleydale,  and  considered  by  the 
profession  to  have  been  the  most  competent  of  common 
law  lawyers. 

These  you  may  have  as  your  friends,  if  you  will  but 
put  up  with  their  company,  through  the  accurate  pages  of 
Foss,  and,  in  so  far  as  they  were  Lord  Chief  Justices  and 
Lord  Chancellors,  through  the  more  entertaining,  if  less 
accurate,  and  more  vivacious  but  at  times  malicious 
pages  of  Lord  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors 
and  of  the  Chief  Justices  of  England.   He  was  himself 

i  62  y 


both  Chief  Justice  and  Chancellor,  of  whose  literary 
performances,  it  was  said,  perhaps  with  hardly  less 
malice  than  Campbell  had  written  of  some  of  his  emi- 
nent predecessors,  that  he  had  by  his  biographies  added 
"  a  new  terror  to  death." 

Speaking  in  a  law  school  in  which  common  law  and 
equity  are  the  bases  of  study,  I  have  confined  myself  to 
a  few  of  the  lawyers  and  judges  of  England  whose  names 
are  inextricably  connected  with  those  systems  of  law 
forming  the  bases  of  our  own.  However,  I  would  not 
have  you  believe  that  we  of  the  United  States  have  not 
lawyers  and  judges  worthy  of  the  Bar  and  Bench  of  the 
mother  country.  With  their  great  names  you  are,  of 
course,  more  familiar.  Therefore,  without  indulging  in 
an  enumeration,  I  would  refer  you  to  the  eight  stately 
volumes  of  Great  American  Lawyers  in  which  you  will 
find  the  careers  of  our  judges  as  well. 

When,  for  the  first  time,  you  read  one  of  their  opin- 
ions— whether  in  common  law  or  in  equity — in  any  of 
the  case  books  with  which  our  schools  abound,  you  may, 
by  consulting  Foss,  Campbell,  or  the  Great  American 
Lawyers,  easily  ascertain  what  manner  of  man  he  was 
who  rendered  the  decision,  his  standing  as  a  judge,  the 
ways  and  means  by  which  he  acquired  his  education, 
progressed,  and  attained  his  distinction  at  the  Bar,  and 
his  services  upon  the  Bench.  By  so  doing,  you  will  be 
able  to  appreciate  the  value  of  the  judgment;  and  one 
bearing  an  honored  name  will  cause  you  to  ponder  and 
to  dwell  upon  it  as  you  would  not  an  opinion  of  a  judge 
of  lesser  standing.  If  you  do  not  see  their  ideas  in  the 
process  of  formation,  you  at  least  see  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  expressed — in  models  of  reasoning  and 
of  style,  worthy  of  imitation,  because  they  embody 
learning  of  the  law  and  the  wisdom  of  the  profession. 

These  may  perhaps  seem  to  be  small  matters.  They 
will  loom  larger  with  time ;  and  in  after  years  you  will 
look  upon  the  judges  as  friends  of  your  youth,  trust  in 

-i  63  y 


whom  was  never  misplaced,  and  whose  ways  were,  if  I 
may  say  so,  the  ways  of  righteousness  and  of  peace. 

Among  the  profession  there  is  one  who  seems  in  his 
person  and  in  his  character,  above  all  others  to  embody 
and  show  forth  the  qualities  which  we  would  like  to 
think  inherent  in  a  member  of  the  legal  profession — a  lib- 
eral in  an  illiberal  age;  a  member  of  Parliament  who 
sought  to  use  his  influence  to  reform  the  criminal  code 
under  which  his  countrymen  so  unjustly  suffered,  but 
was  unable  to  do  more  than  to  start  a  movement  which, 
however,  has  made  of  the  criminal  law  of  England  the 
most  efficient  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  humane 
of  codes.  His  highest  post  was  that  of  Solicitor-General, 
although  he  would  have  adorned  the  Bench  and  occu- 
pied the  wool  sack  if  he  had  lived  a  few  years  longer, 
until  the  advent  of  his  party  to  power.  The  tragic  and 
untimely  death  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly — for  it  is  of  him, 
I  am  speaking — was  recognized  as  a  public  calamity, 
and  moved  even  Lord  Eldon,  the  embodiment  of  Tory- 
ism, to  tears.  I  have  quoted  a  word  of  praise  of  the 
Erskines,  and  of  Curran,  from  their  fellow-countrymen. 
Let  me  lay  before  you,  in  English,  what  Benjamin  Con- 
stant of  France  said  of  Romilly  upon  hearing,  in  Paris, 
of  his  death  at  the  age  of  sixty-one :  "An  illustrious  for- 
eigner who  belonged  to  all  countries,  because  he  has 
merited  the  admiration  of  all  countries  in  defending  the 
cause  of  humanity,  of  liberty,  and  of  justice." 

With  Romilly  as  a  model,  law  will  be  neither  a  trade 
nor  a  craft;  and  in  being  a  profession,  it  will  not  cease 
to  be  an  art.  We  all  need  a  hero,  for  in  the  busy  strug- 
gles of  life,  and  in  the  desire  to  succeed,  we  are  some- 
times inclined  to  adopt  the  ways  of  trade — the  methods 
of  business — instead  of  the  standards  of  art,  and  of  a 

profession. 

*         *         *         * 

My  dear  young  friends,  I  had  the  very  great  honor  to 
be  connected  with  this  Law  School  from  its  beginning, 

A  64  }- 


indeed,  I  was  its  first  dean;  and,  had  the  privilege  of 
addressing  your  predecessors  on  their  migration  from 
the  older  building,  which  was  assigned  to  the  Law 
School  and  dedicated  under  my  deanship.  I  am,  not 
unnaturally,  anxious  that  your  removal  to  more  ade- 
quate quarters  should  be  celebrated  in  a  more  elaborate 
way,  becoming  a  profession  and  an  art.  And  inasmuch 
as  Mrs.  Scott  was  a  student  at  the  University  at  that 
time — as  I  have  already  mentioned — we  have  both 
thought  that  we  would  like,  in  memory  of  a  precious  as- 
sociation, to  leave  with  you  something  which,  seen  daily, 
may  enter  into  your  daily  life.  It  seems  to  us,  upon  re- 
flection, that  the  best  way  to  convince  you  that  law  is  an 
art  and  a  profession  would  be  to  confront  you  with  evi- 
dences of  that  art  and  of  that  profession.  Therefore,  we 
ask  the  Dean  of  the  College  of  Law  to  accept,  in  our 
behalf  and  in  our  joint  names,  a  collection  of  portraits, 
mezzotints,  stiples  and  line  engravings,  of  some  of  the 
greatest  judges  of  the  profession,  so  that,  strolling 
through  the  building  in  your  leisure  hours,  you  will  feel 
yourselves  in  an  atmosphere,  not  only  of  your  own  age, 
but  of  the  centuries ;  and  that  as  no  one  can  be  oblivious 
to  his  environment,  and  no  person  can  fail,  uncon- 
sciously and  without  effort,  to  be  impressed  by  the  at- 
mosphere with  which  he  is  surrounded,  you  will  leave 
the  Law  School  of  the  University  of  Illinois  in  the 
fullness  of  knowledge,  for  the  practice  of  your  profession 
and  of  your  art,  with  the  assurance  and  the  conscious- 
ness that,  if  you  do  not  advance  their  traditions,  they 
will  neither  be  tarnished,  nor  suffer  in  your  hands. 

Therefore,  we  offer  you  twenty-eight  prints — a  beau- 
tiful one,  as  we  would  like  you  to  think,  for  every  year 
from  the  date  of  my  connection  with  the  Law  School, 
and  one  from  each  of  us  for  you — as  they  say — to  "grow 
on."  And  we  hope  that,  with  your  prayers,  our  lives  may 
be  so  prolonged  that  we  may  give  to  your  successors 
here,  a  second  series  of  twenty-eight  prints — the  one  for 

-f  65  }- 


the  years  that  have  been,  and  the  other  for  the  years  that 
are  to  come. 

Long  before  I  was  connected  with  the  University  of 
Illinois,  I  read  some  verses  of  Austin  Dobson,  with 
which,  perhaps,  you  may  not  be  familiar,  but  which  I 
always  recall  with  pleasure.  In  parting,  I  would  call 
them  to  your  attention,  that  you,  who  are  living  in  the 
present,  and  busied  with  the  traditions  of  the  past,  may 
think  somewhat  of  the  future ;  and  I  would  like  to  be- 
lieve that  they  may  make  an  appeal,  especially  to  those 
of  you  who  are  about  to  enter  upon  the  practice  of  a 
learned  profession  and  of  an  ennobling  art. 

In  after  days,  when  grasses  high 
O'er-top  the  stone  where  I  shall  lie, 
Though  ill  or  well  the  world  adjust 
My  slender  claim  to  honored  dust, 
I  shall  not  question  nor  reply. 
I  shall  not  see  the  morning  sky, 
I  shall  not  hear  the  night-wind  sigh, 
I  shall  be  mute,  as  all  men  must 
In  after  days! 
But  yet,  now  living,  fain  were  I 
That  some  one  then  should  testify, 
Saying — He  held  his  pen  in  trust 
To  Art,  not  serving  shame  or  lust. 
Will  none?  .  .  .  Then  let  my  memory  die 
In  after  days! 


■{  66  } 


President  Kinley  :  It  is  a  gracious  and  fine  thing 
that  you,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Scott,  have  done  in  pre- 
senting the  University  for  its  College  of  Law  with 
this  large  number  of  fine  pictures  of  men  distinguished 
in  the  history  of  the  law  of  the  English  speaking  peoples. 
Your  splendid  gift  awakens  recollections  of  your  long 
service  to  the  University  years  ago  when  you  were  offi- 
cially connected  with  it.  It  brings  to  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  those  of  us  who  were  here  at  that  time  as  your 
associates  recollections  of  your  splendid  loyalty  and  in- 
spiring service.  Your  present  action  is  but  in  keeping 
with  all  that  has  preceded. 

These  pictures  will  hang  on  the  walls  of  the  College  of 
Law  through  generations  of  students  yet  to  come.  They 
will  be  an  inspiration  as  well  as  a  reminder.  In  their 
study  of  what  is  sometimes  called  the  "dry"  subject  of 
law,  students  will  find  their  path  made  easier  and  their 
horizon  made  brighter  by  looking  occasionally  at  these 
pictures.  They  will  speculate  upon  the  personality,  the 
character,  the  peculiarities  of  each  individual  and  recall 
his  contribution  to  the  great  science  and  art  they  are 
studying.  Their  studies  will  mean  more  to  them,  as  they 
think  of  these  men  and  their  achievements.  As  a  re- 
minder, these  pictures  will  call  to  the  recollection  of  stu- 
dents the  spirit  of  their  donors.  They  will  remember 
that  that  spirit  is  one  of  service,  kindliness,  loyalty  and 
inspiration,  which  they  will  do  well  to  emulate. 

Through  the  generations  these  pictures  will  remind 
our  students  of  the  great  traditions  and  glorious  history 
of  their  field  of  study,  of  the  many  distinguished  men 
who  have  contributed  to  its  development,  and  will  in- 
spire them  to  add  their  contribution  to  the  progress  of 
the  science  of  law. 

For  the  College  of  Law,  its  students,  its  faculty,  and 
for  the  University,  the  faculty,  and  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees, I  thank  you  very  warmly  for  your  splendid  gift. 

-{  67  }- 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


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